Introduction

Overview

Welcome to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Stored Procedure Programming in T-SQL & .NET. This book identifies and describes the key concepts, tips, techniques, and best practices the professional developer needs to master in order to take full advantage of stored procedures using SQL Server's native Transact-SQL and .NET compatible programming languages.

Microsoft SQL Server is the relational database management system (RDBMS) of choice for a growing number of business organizations and professional database and application developers. The reasons for this growing popularity are quite simple:

• Integration No other RDBMS integrates as fully and cleanly with applications and integrated development environments (IDEs) designed to run on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows platform.

• Ease of use SQL Server provides a suite of tools to allow DBAs to design, develop, deploy, and manage database solutions. These interfaces automate repetitive tasks and provide simple ways to perform complex operations. SQL Server integrates seamlessly with development tools such as Visual Studio to allow developers to design and develop client/server or Internet solutions rapidly.

• Flexibility You can use different features within SQL Server to achieve similar results. (Of course, with flexibility comes choice, and choice means that the developer is responsible for choosing the most appropriate means of achieving an end. This book will help you make those choices.)

• Power SQL Server makes large amounts of data available to large numbers of concurrent users while maintaining the security and integrity of the data.

When I began working with SQL Server, reference materials relating to the development and deployment of stored procedures were rare and not particularly helpful. These materials described basic concepts, but the examples presented were often trivial and not complex enough to be applied to real-world situations in which aspects such as error handling, debugging, naming conventions, and interfaces to other applications are critical. As the legions of application developers and development DBAs migrated from Microsoft Access to SQL Server, and as SQL Server became the leading database for mission-critical application and decision support systems development, the need for more advanced work on SQL Server stored procedures became even more critical.