Author Name
Mike Chapple
September, 2008
ISBN: 978-0470224656
A great addition to a proud tradition!
Mike Chapple's approach to educating dummies
The great thing about "Dummies" books is that you know what you're getting. The style and format are as uniform as McDonald's hamburgers. Mike Chapple's book about SQL Server 2008 is no exception. And it's with great pride that I acknowledge that Mike is our guide to databases here at About.com. So I'll try ... really hard ... really I will ... to be impartial and unbiased. (Really!!)
Actually, it won't that hard for me because I actually don't like the underlying theme of the "Dummies" series: that you're a dummy. I personally would never call anyone a dummy - unless they paid me, of course. But I presume they paid Mike so he's forgiven.
If you're familiar with the series, you're probably expecting a lot of throwaway humor. This one does have the Rich Tennant cartoons, but other than that, Mike approaches the subject with a good deal more seriousness than I have seen in other "Dummies" books. I could think up a lot more corny jokes than Mike has. (Why are "Dummies" books yellow? Because yellow is the color of corn! Get it?)
Maybe that's why Wiley isn't ringing my phone to write a book.
Industrial Grade
As Mike points out in the first chapter, Microsoft's SQL Server is an industrial grade software product used for the most complex and demanding systems in the world today. The "Enterprise" edition will set you back $25,000 - for each processor. (Buy one for each of your kids.) Fortunately, the Express edition is free and uses the same database engine that the $25,000 version uses. Mike's book costs twenty bucks at Amazon. I think that most of Mike's readers will turn out to prefer the Express edition.
In spite of this, Mike is an industrial grade database guru and the book is too. The first chapter has a comparision of the various SQL Server editions and the "Express" version is one of them. But after that, I didn't even see the word "Express" in the rest of the book. And some of the tools that are only in the high-priced spread are covered. So don't think you're just getting a cheap book. (Well ... it is a "cheap" book, but it's not a cheap cheap book.)
Instead, there is significant content on advanced topics like database replication, transaction integrity, and DMF, the "Declarative Management Framework" that is new in SQL Server 2008. It's impossible to really do justice to all of the advanced features in a product like SQL Server 2008 in just over 350 pages, but Mike gives you a pretty good running start at a surprising number of them.
For VB Programmers
The good news is that this is not one of those books filled with useless C# or Java code. The bad news is that there's no VB code either. Instead, there's lots of SQL code. But if you're really looking for database understanding, then this is a plus. Even much thicker books that feature lots of VB code only have the basics about how and why a relational database works. But in Mike's book, that's the main event.
To assess the technical level of database books, I like to look up "many-to-many relationships". It's a difficult topic and if your database design seems to require it, then maybe you ought to have a second look at your design. Because it's so difficult, including it can garbage up an otherwise clear and understandable explanation. Mike, probably correctly, didn't include it.
The details of database administration also get very heavy treatment. Somehow, I get the feeling that Mike has done a bit of administration before. Part V is titled "Server Administration" and it's the biggest section of the book. But Part VI on security is really administration too.
If you're looking for a book that tells you what namespaces you need to import or the LINQ syntax you need in VB, keep looking. But if you want to know how to design your database or an introduction to fundamental requirements like database tuning, backup, or modifications you can't go wrong with this one.
You can always get totally confused trying to read Microsoft's documentation later.
The Bottom Line
This is a great book at a great price. But it's not for everybody. The ideal person who would benefit from this book is a non-DP person who needs to work with a DP professional and needs to know something about it. Say, for example, if you're an accountant working with the programming department to build a new system from scratch. But Visual Basic programmers who need an introduction to SQL Server database design and administration will also get a lot from it, especially if the database is one being used by a large corporation.
