Initial review of "SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials" Book

Hello friends,

Today I would like to give an initial review of "SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials" by Basit Farooq published by Packt Publishing. This book covers both basics and advance topics of SQL Server 2014.

Following are the 6 chapters of the book:

1. Microsoft Database Design Principles
2. Understanding DDL and DCL statements in SQL Server
3. Data Retrieval using T-SQL statements
4. Data Modification using SQL Server T-SQL statements
5. Understanding Advanced Database programming objects and Error handling
6. Performance basics

The author starts the book with basics of database, like database design principles, relationships, normalization & basic architecture of SQL Server like Pages, Extents and Transaction Log architecture.

Next is understanding how to write queries. Here he starts by explaining concepts about SQL, T-SQL, DDL, DML & DDL statments. Then he explains about various system databases and various database recovery models. He then deep dives into the world of writing different statements and explain it with the help of various examples like creating database, modify database, create, modify, drop table object. Then explains about DCL statements using various examples.

In data retrieval, he explains how to write queries using T-SQL to retrieve data and how to apply various techniques to retrieve data like Group by, Order by etc. Then he explains about adding, updating & deleting data using delete, Insert or update statements. I would like to highlight that he has tried to include as many examples to ensure people can practice it & understand the concepts easily.

Next he goes on to explain about various database objects like Views, Stored Procedures, Triggers and also give an insight & purpose of each object.

Performance is something, which is very critical for any developer or DBA as that is always an area people don't have in-depth knowledge. The author has put extra efforts to set a strong base for anyone who want to learn about basics of Performance Tuning, how to start it & what to have in hand to start practicing it. Then he goes on to explain about Indexes & what are the performance impacts of various indexes, basics of checking performance of any query & what can be done to know if there is scope to further fine tune query or not.

Overall I would like to say that this is a small & nice book as compared to various large books available in market, this book touch upon a lot of critical areas deeply and ensure that the basics are set correctly before a developer or DBA start looking at advance topics.

I will post more details about the book later after it's published. In order to preview the book, click here.

Happy Learning
Sudhir