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Jake Shelton
Yak Posting Veteran
74 Posts |
 Posted - 2011-11-13 : 15:41:20
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| Hi all, I've decided to retool from Admin to Developer.I have a copy of the Appdev T-SQL 2008 training course of 54 hours duration, covers off mostly everything, but is it worth ploughing through it? The SSIS course is another 30 hours, so I'm looking effectively at 2 weeks f/t study. Which takes me very close to December.The way I look at it is, I may just need lots of practice writing joins and using the various subcommands with the Select/Update/Insert statements. Is there a quicker/cleaner way of getting to black-belt (from about yellow!!) in the above two skills? |
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X002548
Not Just a Number
15586 Posts |
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nigelrivett
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3385 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-14 : 09:55:44
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| Depends on what you want to do. I've seen a lot of so called developers who struggle to write sql.The most important thing to know is when to use something (you also need the how but you can get by on a very small subset of what's available) and that only comes with experience.==========================================Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.SSIS can be used in a similar way.Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy. |
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X002548
Not Just a Number
15586 Posts |
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Jake Shelton
Yak Posting Veteran
74 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-17 : 05:01:32
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quote:
Originally posted by nigelrivett
Depends on what you want to do. I've seen a lot of so called developers who struggle to write sql.The most important thing to know is when to use something (you also need the how but you can get by on a very small subset of what's available) and that only comes with experience.
Actually I can well imagine the 'getting by on a subset' part on the Admin side, for example I can't remember the last time I had to put a DB into Single User mode, or whatever it's called, nor when you'd do it. Only recently did I ever have a statement lock out on me to the point where I had to try to kill the spid, failed, and end up bouncing the service.As for what I want to do, the first thing is to get a grip on what the job can entail. So far, I've got...Gathering user/client requirement;Sproc/View (re)Design;Table/DB (re)Design;ETL;Report-writing, both in pure T-SQL and RS.But I'm sure I can improve that list, any ideas welcome. |
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nigelrivett
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3385 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-17 : 05:38:26
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| Probably the most important things about writing the code are error handling and performance.Be able to write test scripts to test errors and how to log them and to stop processes when necessary.For performance get familiar with query plans and understand how indexes are stored and used and how queries can use them. Again being able to create quick tests and to decompose a statement is important.You will need to be able to log information from the system so that issues can be diagnosed later - it's amazing how many issues can be identified by getting a bit of information reather than just knowing the system is running slowly or keeps crashing.==========================================Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.SSIS can be used in a similar way.Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy. |
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Jake Shelton
Yak Posting Veteran
74 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-17 : 06:08:06
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| Am I right in thinking it's best to compartmentalize any Sprocs down into atomic phases and then introduce an error handling step for each? For a random example, if a portion of code in a Sproc has to go out to a linked DB, which happens to be offline, then is it best to create a code just for that portion stating, "Unable to reach linked server", or something? When you say "decompose a statement", are you referring to being able to read a lengthy piece of code and quickly understand its workings, or to break it down for the purpose of rewriting it to include error handling? |
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