SQL PROGRAMMING STYLE- P45:Im mot trying to teach you to program in SQL in this book. You might want to read that again. If that is what you wanted, there are better books. This ought to be the second book you buy, not the first. I assume that you already write SQL at some level and want to get better at it. If you want to learn SQL programming tricks, get a copy of my other book, SQL for Smarties (3rd edition, 2005). | Introduction I AM NOT ttying to teach you to program in SQL in this book. You might want to read that again. If that is what you wanted there are better books. This ought to be the second book you buy not the first. I assume that you already write SQL at some level and want to get better at it. If you want to learn SQL programming tricks get a copy of my other book SQL for Smarties 3rd edition 2005 . I am trying to teach the reader how to work in logical and declarative terms instead of in a procedural or OO manner Query Eye for the Database Guy if you will forgive a horrible contemporary pun. Few if any SQL programmers came to SQL before learning and writing for years in a procedural or object-oriented language. They then got one particular SQL product and were told to learn it on their own or with a book that has a title like SQL for Brain-Dead Morons Learn SQL in Ten Easy Lessons or Five Hard Ones or worse. This is absurd It takes at least five years to learn to be a master carpenter or chef. Why would you believe people could become SQL gurus in a weekend What they become is bad SQL programmers who speak SQL in dialect from the local SQL product with a strong accent from their previous languages. You might want to read Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig or No Silver Bullets by Fred Brooks Computer 20 4 10-19 April 1987 to get a reality check. iiasmiiiEMiaiHisiaaiiiuMK xvi INTRODUCTION The horrible part is that these people often don t know they are bad programmers. At one extreme the entire shop where they work is just as bad and they never see anything else. At the other extreme if anyone tries to tell them about their problems they become defensive or angry. If you look at postings on SQL newsgroups many programmers just want to get a kludge for an immediate problem and not actually obtain a true long-term solution. If these were woodworking newsgroups their questions would be the equivalent of What are the .
