A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005, Addison-Wesley
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C# Online.NET Book Review
Microsoft is like a super tanker—it doesn't turn fast; but, when it does, everything turns with it. Well, the tanker has set a course for the World Wide Web via the .NET straits; and, the SQL Server RDBMS is very much aboard. SQL Server has been extensively retooled to support .NET and Internet related technologies like XML.
Accordingly, this book begins and ends with .NET support—from the .NET Framework (Chapter 1) to Visual Studio 2005 (Appendix C). This is a big book—a thousand pages—on a big subject—SQL Server 2005. This latest version of SQL Server features tighter intergration with .NET, a redesign of Data Transformation Services (DTS), a new XML data type, new Transact-SQL query types and error handling, an integrated suite of management tools and management application programming interfaces (APIs), failover clustering and database mirroring technology, table partitioning, replication enhancements, 64-bit support, and more! In short, virtually no subsystem of SQL Server escaped modification.
This book is—in effect—the second edition of A First Look at Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Developers which came out when SQL Server 2005 was still in beta when it was still known as Yukon. That book was well received; and, this one is even better.
Many of you are still working with SQL Server 2000 or even earlier versions. However, the sea change is so great between SQL Server 2005 and what came before that it behooves you to begin to learn the differences.
The book covers a lot of territory (see the Table of Contents); so there is something for everyone; but not everyone will be interested in all. It is not the type of book one would read cover to cover: It makes a good reference book for SQL Server. Most will read only the chapters of interest; but, in doing so, they may overlook the power and sophistication of SQL Server 2005.
The authors are extemely knowledgeable; and, it shows in the writing. It is very detailed yet readable with many figures, examples, and samples.
All source code examples are in the C# language.
Bottom line
A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005 is the bible of SQL Server 2005 and belongs in the cube of every serious SQL Server developer.
From the back cover
Few technologies have been as eagerly anticipated as Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Now, two SQL Server insiders deliver the definitive hands-on guide--accurate, comprehensive, and packed with examples. A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005 starts where Microsoft's documentation, white papers, and Web articles leave off, showing developers how to take full advantage of SQL Server 2005's key innovations. It draws on exceptional cooperation from Microsoft's SQL Server developers and the authors' extensive access to SQL Server 2005 since its earliest alpha releases.
You'll find practical explanations of the new SQL Server 2005 data model, built-in .NET hosting, improved programmability, SQL:1999 compliance, and much more. Virtually every key concept is illuminated via sample code that has been fully updated for and tested with the shipping version of the product.
Key coverage includes
- Using SQL Server 2005 as a .NET runtime host: extending the server while enhancing security, reliability, and performance
- Writing procedures, functions, triggers, and types in .NET languages
- Exploiting enhancements to T-SQL for robust error-handling, efficient queries, and improved syntax
- Effectively using the XML data type and XML queries
- Implementing native SQL Server 2005 Web Services
- Writing efficient, robust clients for SQL Server 2005 using ADO.NET, classic ADO, and other APIs
- Taking full advantage of user-defined types (UDTs), query notifications, promotable transactions, and multiple active result sets (MARS) Using SQL Management Objects (SMO), SQL Service Broker, and SQL Server Notification Services to build integrated applications
About the author(s)
Bob Beauchemin has more than twenty years' experience in the computer industry as an instructor, course author, software developer, and systems administrator. He currently is a senior staff instructor at DevelopMentor, curriculum liaison for the data access curriculum, and author of courses on ADO.NET, OLE DB, ADO, SQL Server application development, and Java Data Access. He has designed and implemented data-driven Web sites, as well as traditional data access applications for many different clients.
Dan Sullivan is president of the Ballston Group, a consulting and education firm specializing in business intelligence and portal design. Widely recognized for his work on the use of unstructured data in business intelligence, he is a columnist for DM Review magazine and BusinessIntelligence.com. Dan also wrote Document Warehousing and Text Mining.
Foreword
AS I SAID IN THE foreword to A First Look at SQL Server 2005 for Developers, I have been a Bob Beauchemin fan for the past seven years. Bob is one of the few people I know who not only knows a lot about database programming, but also is very good at teaching other people to be great database programmers. Bob wrote the book on ADO programming and has many years of experience teaching database programming classes and giving presentations at conferences and seminars.
In addition to reviewing several chapters of this book multiple times as they were changed to keep pace with changes to the beta content, I sat in on several classes that Bob and Dan taught about SQL Server 2005 programming. They both have a unique talent for simplifying complex topics and explaining them in a way that is relevant to developers. This talent is obvious in the content of this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to take advantage of the new features of SQL Server 2005 in his or her applications.
About three years ago, I sat for a couple of hours at a Starbucks in Seattle with Bob to talk about the Service Broker chapter of this book. In those three years, this book has gone through countless reviews and rewrites, until now, it’s the most authoritative book about SQL Server 2005 programming available. Many people on the SQL Server development team have provided input and reviewed many of the chapters several times. I have been involved in various ways throughout this process, so I’m very excited to see the RTM version of this book reach completion.
The thing that makes this book truly unique is that Bob and Dan taught SQL Server 2005 programming to several hundred developers in the Microsoft Ascend and TAP programs while they were writing the book, so the content of the book is heavily influenced by what real developers found useful and the questions they asked. There’s no better way to learn a new technology than trying to explain it to someone else, so after teaching this material many times all over the world, Dan and Bob have a deep understanding of what developers need to know and how best to explain it to them. This is evident in both the clear, lucid text and the excellent sample code included in this book. Examples are the key elements in any programming book, and the examples in this book are exceptionally clear and relevant.
SQL Server 2005 is the most feature-rich version of SQL Server ever released, and many of the most significant features were developer oriented, so a book on the developer features of SQL Server 2005 is critical. Dan and Bob do an excellent job of explaining the most significant new developer-centric features and how to use them to improve your database applications. I was heavily involved in the Service Broker chapter, so naturally I think it’s the best one, but the sections on XML and CLR integration are also very good. These three features together make SQL Server 2005 a serious contender as an application platform for data-intensive applications. Understanding these new technologies is a key part of being a successful SQL Server 2005 developer, and this book is an excellent place to start learning.
I wish you luck as you embark on your journey into the next generation of database development and hope that you enjoy this book as much as I have.
Roger Wolter, Solutions Architect, SQL Server Team, Microsoft Corporation
Table of Contents (abbreviated)
- Chapter 1: Introduction 1
- Chapter 2: Hosting the Runtime: SQL Server As a Runtime Host
- Chapter 3: Procedures and Functions in .NET CLR Languages
- Chapter 4: In-Process Data Access
- Chapter 5: User-Defined Types and Aggregates
- Chapter 6: Security
- Chapter 7: SQL Engine Enhancements
- Chapter 8: T-SQL Language Enhancements
- Chapter 9: XML in the Database: The XML Data Type
- Chapter 10: XML Query Languages: XQuery and XPath
- Chapter 11: SQL Server Service Broker
- Chapter 12: SQL Server As a Platform for Web Services
- Chapter 13: SQL Server 2005 and Clients
- Chapter 14: ADO.NET 2.0 and SqlClient
- Chapter 15: SQL Server Management Objects
- Chapter 16: Notification Services
- Chapter 17: Wrap-Up: Service-Oriented Database Applications
- Appendix A .NET Framework
- Appendix B SQL Server Management Studio
- Appendix C Visual Studio 2005 Integration: SQL Server Projects
