Advice For Beginner MS SQL Programmer - I Need Guidance

[JosephNC]

I'm a graphic designer turned programmer. I became awfully familiar with VBScript in the process of integrating web interfaces on top of experienced programmer's business logic. All the projects that i've developed as a programmer have been small, low-traffic applications where i used MS Access as the RDBMS. I want to move to using MS SQL for my projects. Can someone guide me as to what development tools i need to implement a DB solution with SQL Server for my web apps? what are my options? I can't seem to get my hands around what tools i need to start to become familiar with SQL Server. any guidance/advice is GREATLY appreciated. I need to cease from using MS Access! Thanks in advance.

 

[chiph]

The skills you've acquired in designing tables will still apply of course. But the main design tools are Enterprise Manager (tree-view based app that shows pretty much everything about your database) and Query Analyzer (shows you the execution plan of your query, so you can optimize it for performance). There's OSQL.EXE as well, which can be used to script database changes (point it at a .sql file and it will execute it -- nice for installations and remote upgrades).

I would go to Amazon or your local bookstore and start looking for books that will:
1. Help you improve your database design skills. Coming from an Access background, I'm sure you recognize that there's a tradition of "just get it done", whereas in SQLServer it's more like "make it right the first time".
2. Learn about the internals of SQLServer. Basically, learn the steps it takes when executing a query. Once you know this, you'll know how to optimize for performance.
3. Learn about database administration. This is the day-to-day running of a database -- doing backups, replication, log-shipping, truncating the log files, etc.

Chip H.


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[JosephNC]

Chip:

thanks for your advice. I recently worked on a content management system implementation and i got to see Enterprise Manager and how some of what you mentioned worked. I saw how to create stored procedures and how to call them from my .asp pages, the query analyzer (the programmers would send us text files with this code in in that we put into EM and it ran operations on the database tables). You're right, setting user permissions on tables, SPs, and the like - it seemed there's a lot to learn when using SQL server. So, i guess i need to purchase EM to develop tables locally and then transfer to a live server? I want to get the right set of tools on my box to start developing correctly. I had a friend to tell me that i could use Access on top of some free download from Microsoft's website to have an "ad-hoc" tool to develop SQL server, however it would be limits on what i could do.

 

[Catadmin]

If you already have a copy of SQL Server, you can just download the client tools (EM & QA) on your local desktop to play with. You can even use it to load a development/test instance on a test server (Windows 2000 server or Windows 2003 server) that you can play with.

If you don't have an available copy of SQL Server, go to

http://www.Provantage.com

and see if they still have any SQL Server 2000 Developer copies around. They were about $50.00 the last time I purchased one.

Developer edition contains all the client tools and everything you need to develop on SQL Server.
You can't purchase Enterprise Manager separate, that I know of, for Microsoft's SQL Server.




Catadmin - MCDBA, MCSA
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the universe *isn't* out to get me!"