Michel Cadot Messages: 68625 Registered: March 2007 Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member Account Moderator
I'd like to talk about two books I recently read about SQL and database applications I think there are the most useful ones for people that have to design or work with this kind of applications.
To quote what the author says with humour in his latest Youtube presentation about indexes:
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I wrote two books, one about how I think one should write SQL and more recently a second one, more relevant to what takes most of my professional time namely improving SQL applications written by people who have obviously not read my first book.
The first book, The Art of SQL, takes the same plan than Sun Tzu's treatise, The Art of War, and explain how to prepare a SQL application design like a military campaign. His humour and style are great and you will find the substance is even greater. To quote Antoni Molinaro (author of SQL Cookbook):
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A truly 'smart' SQL book that tackles problems you will encounter as a database professional, focusing on what's real, not what's in a classroom.
I think this book should be provided with each SQL course.
The second book, Refactoring SQL Applications, explains what you can do when your database applications don't reach the expected performances. It explains step by step how to modify the application to increase performances starting with checking whether and where you can obtain some gains then going from quick fixes to deeper and deeper modifications, pointing that you can stop at any step if you reach reasonably performances.
If the first book explains how to design a SQL application, the second one greatly helps the professional in her every day application improvement task.
You can see a small application of this book in his Rewriting SQL queries for Performance in 9 minutes video
Now I can't think of any professional living without these two books. You think I am obliging toward Stephane Faroult and his books, I'm not. I'm always read critically the books I buy (and I bought some on SQL that I should say they are the way to not tackle SQL optimisation).
The only advice I could give is: buy them, read them and read them again, each time you will find new things and you will say to yourself as I do "Hey! this is my current problem".
The Art of SQL
Laying Plans - Designing Databases for Performances
Waging War - Accessing Databases Efficiently
Tactical Dispositions - Indexing
Maneuvering - Thinking SQL Statements
Terrain - Understanding Physical Implementation
The Nine Situations - Recognizing Classic SQL Patterns
Variations in Tactics - Dealing with Hierarchical Data
Weaknesses and Strengths - Recognizing and Handling Difficult Cases
Multiple Fronts - Tackling Concurrency
Assembly of Forces - Coping with Large Volume of Data
Stratagems - Trying to Salvage Response Times
Employment of Spies - Monitoring Performances
Refactoring SQL Applications
Assessment
Sanity Checks
User Functions and Views
Testing Framework
Statement Refactoring
Task Refactoring
Refactoring Flows and Databases
How it works refactoring in practice
He wrote a new book: SQL Success - Database Programming Proficiency, see below.
And he wrote once more: Getting the Message Across, see below.