What's the best book to buy for learning MS-SQL Server for a database
programmer. I'll tell you my goals. I want a book that covers:

1) the theory behind operators (cartesian JOIN, cross JOIN, all the
JOINs, UNION, UNION all) and their comparison to mathematics/set
theory

2) writing complex queries, nested queries (sub-queries)

3) tell me about some MS-SQL Server hacks like how many maximum
columns a
table can have, if there's some such thing

4) explains what indexing is, types of indexing, types of locks, etc.

5) explains what database partitions are

6) explains some maintenance legwork like backup/restore, setting up
ODBC connections, creating and deleting users, granting/revoking
rights

7) teaches me to write stored procedures, cursors, functions,
packages
(if there's such a thing) and triggers

8) tells me about the limits of each datatype and possibly their byte
structure. Some of this is covered in the Books Online but it'll be
better if I can have a paper version of it to read it in bed

Try these:

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Microso...2637210&sr=8-8

Administrator's Guide to SQL Server 2005
http://www.amazon.com/Administrators...2637300&sr=8-1

-Dirk

On Oct 17, 8:53 am, Mukesh_Singh_N... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote:

Mukesh_Singh_Nick (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote:

If you have to ask, you should review your database design for
possible normal-form violations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:53:36 -0700, Mukesh_Singh_Nick (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote:


Hi Mukesh_Singh_Nick,

Based on the list of your goals, I think you should get all four parts
of the "Inside SQL Server 2005" series. Except, maybe, the one about
optimizing and tuning, since that is not on your list of subjects that
should be covered (though, on the other hand, it probably should be).

--
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP
My SQL Server blog: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis