Foreword

for RuBoard

This is a book that deserves a prominent place by anyone who aspires to be a professional developer of SQL Server applications.

I had the honor and pleasure to be the first development manager for Microsoft SQL Server. During my 11-plus years in the group , I hired many of the key developers of the product, and worked alongside them. I came to learn a lot about characteristics that are common to great developers: Passion. That genius in software development (to paraphrase Einstein) really is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. There exists a near fanaticism that "good enough" isn't. One must strive for perfection . The professional writes efficient, industrial-strength, well-documented code that can be maintained , understood , and enhanced for years to come by not just himself, but by others too. Many a truly brilliant newly graduated computer science major takes several years to mature from being a hot and clever coder to being a true professional developer. (A few never could make the transition, and had short careersat least in my group.) They are familiar with the prominent algorithms in their area of specialty. Mastery of their development languages and tools is a given. And shortcuts don't cut it for a real professional. Every boundary condition must be considered , provided for, and tested before the code is checked in. Assertions in code are a must. Return codes are always checked. Extensive comments are imperative. Reuse of code is essential. Code inspections and walkthroughs are welcomed and routine. When you make that check-in of code, it's like signing your name to a work of art. It meets your own high standards. And you never stop learning. Professionals are students of their craft throughout their careers. In our industry, if you are not moving your skills forward, you are going backward.

I loved reading the advance manuscript of this work. All the traits I mention earlier fly off the pages as you read this book. During my Microsoft tenure, I often would meet with SQL Server customers. All too often, it was in the context of an application that wasn't working as smoothly or performing as well as the developers had hoped. I earned a reputation as a sort of "Mr. Fix-It" for such troubled applications, and helped turn some prominent near failures into great success stories. I loved that part of my job. I enjoyed the customer interaction, even though it often started out as very testy meetings. SQL Server itself is often the whipping boy for poorly developed applications. Certainly there were times when SQL Server itself had some bug or shortcoming that contributed to the problem, and the product itself became orders of magnitude more refined, robust, and fast with each new version over the years, as it will continue to do. But, even in the rough early days of version 1.x, enormous improvements in performance or simplicity could be made largely from better use of SQL Server stored procedures. It was not uncommon to see 100-fold and more performance increases because of smarter stored procedure usage. Once we got the shrill managers out of the room in one of these troubled application reviews, great progress could be made. Although I managed a large group myself, and even hold an MBA from a top university, I never considered myself a manager. I always considered myself a developerand developers know how to talk to other developers and respect strong ideas and superior techniques. This is what you will find in this book: an experienced developer talking to other developers. Ken writes in a clear, first-person style that is unfortunately not common in technical books. He is not afraid to state opinions, and all real developers know that opinions and beliefs in software development are essential because there are few truths that can be held to be self-evident. All too often, in my past experience, the crux of the issue in a troubled app came down to the simple truth that the developers didn't take the SQL code as serious as they should have or place as much importance on it as they placed on the C, C++, or other programming language code that comprised the remainder of their application. In many cases, they had only a cursory understanding of SQL and database usage at all. And these were usually very smart people, but they hadn't yet made the commitment to excellence in an unfamiliar area or to be real professionals, at least by my definition. The reality is that many of those situations and meetings would have never taken place had the developers read, studied, and taken this book to heart before they plunged into writing their first SQL Server application. Take the time to read and study this book. It's one step in your commitment to excellence as a professional developer of SQL Server applications.

Congratulations, Ken, and thank you for writing this book. Like your earlier work, The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL , I wish it had existed 10 years ago.

Ron  Soukup
September  2001

for RuBoard


The Guru[ap]s Guide to SQL Server[tm] Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML
The Guru[ap]s Guide to SQL Server[tm] Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML
ISBN: 201700468
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 223

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