Product Description

SQL for Smarties was hailed as the first book devoted explicitly to the advanced techniques needed to transform an experienced SQL programmer into an expert. Now, 10 years later and in the third edition, this classic still reigns supreme as the book written by an SQL master that teaches future SQL masters. These are not just tips and techniques; Joe also offers the best solutions to old and new challenges and conveys the way you need to think in order to get the most out of SQL programming efforts for both correctness and performance.

In the third edition, Joe features new examples and updates to SQL-99, expanded sections of Query techniques, and a new section on schema design, with the same war-story teaching style that made the first and second editions of this book classics.

* Expert advice from a noted SQL authority and award-winning columnist, who has given ten years of service to the ANSI SQL standards committee and many more years of dependable help to readers of online forums.
* Teaches scores of advanced techniques that can be used with any product, in any SQL environment, whether it is an SQL-92 or SQL-99 environment.
* Offers tips for working around system deficiencies.
* Continues to use war stories--updated!--that give insights into real-world SQL programming challenges.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136510 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 840 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In the SQL database community, Joe Celko is a well-known columnist and purveyor of valuable insights. In Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming, he picks up where basic SQL training and experience leaves many database professionals and offers tips, techniques and explanations that help readers extend their capabilities to top-tier SQL programming.

Although Celko denies that the book is about database theory, he often alludes to theory to buttress his practical points. This title is not for novices, as the author points out. Instead its intended audience is SQL programmers with at least a year's experience. The book maintains a fine balance between technical discussion and practical explanation--picking hot topics and offering advice on a wide range of subjects.

The book uses ANSI SQL-89 as its baseline standard, with some mention of SQL-92 features. However, it does not focus on any commercial product but rather zeroes in on the SQL language. Celko covers all aspects of database design, optimisation and manipulation, with easy-to-understand explanations of key issues such as why not to use too many nulls, how to use practical normalisation and how to optimise queries.

This insightful text is manna for all the day-to-day SQL coders banging their heads over the language's subtle challenges. --Stephen W.Plain

Topics covered:
Database design and normalisation, SQL data types, querying, grouping, set operations, optimisation, data scaling and encoding.

Review
"This book is a classic, and this revision will merely solidify its position."
--Rudy Limeback

About the Author
Joe Celko is a noted consultant, lecturer, teacher, and one of the most-read SQL authors in the world. He is well known for his ten years of service on the ANSI SQL standards committee, his dependable help on assorted SQL newsgroups, his column in Intelligent Enterprise (which won several Reader's Choice Awards), and the war stories he tells to provide real-world insights into SQL programming. His best-selling books include Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming, Joe Celko's SQL Puzzles and Answers, Joe Celko's Trees and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties, and Joe Celko's SQL Style, all published by Morgan Kaufmann.

Customer Reviews

If you know some SQL and want to learn more, this is it!
This book is not his basic volume in SQL, but his advanced volume. It helps you along explaining different issues with an excellent explanation of NULLS, their pros and their cons. It gives examples of solving problems in different SQL ways. A great buy.

Excellent book
Lots of examples of complicated/advanced SQL. Not for people who need to learn SQL.

Very good advice for advanced, standard compliant SQL
If you like writing massive stored procedures, using cursors and other non-relational and non standard features of your database then this book probably won't appeal to you much.

Joe Celko puts a lot of effort into showing how you can write high performance and standard SQL without resorting to proprietary hacks. He clearly has a very strong understanding of the underlying theory behind relational databases and uses plenty of examples to explain his points.

I would recommend this book as a very good read to generally improve your overall knowledge of SQL and SQL best practices.