Foreword
AS I SAID IN THE foreword to A First Look at SQL Server 2005 for Developers, I have been a Bob Beauchemin fan for the past seven years. Bob is one of the few people I know who not only knows a lot about database programming, but also is very good at teaching other people to be great database programmers. Bob wrote the book on ADO programming and has many years of experience teaching database programming classes and giving presentations at conferences and seminars.
In addition to reviewing several chapters of this book multiple times as they were changed to keep pace with changes to the beta content, I sat in on several classes that Bob and Dan taught about SQL Server 2005 programming. They both have a unique talent for simplifying complex topics and explaining them in a way that is relevant to developers. This talent is obvious in the content of this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to take advantage of the new features of SQL Server 2005 in his or her applications.
About three years ago, I sat for a couple of hours at a Starbucks in Seattle with Bob to talk about the Service Broker chapter of this book. In those three years, this book has gone through countless reviews and rewrites, until now, it’s the most authoritative book about SQL Server 2005 programming available. Many people on the SQL Server development team have provided input and reviewed many of the chapters several times. I have been involved in various ways throughout this process, so I’m very excited to see the RTM version of this book reach completion.
The thing that makes this book truly unique is that Bob and Dan taught SQL Server 2005 programming to several hundred developers in the Microsoft Ascend and TAP programs while they were writing the book, so the content of the book is heavily influenced by what real developers found useful and the questions they asked. There’s no better way to learn a new technology than trying to explain it to someone else, so after teaching this material many times all over the world, Dan and Bob have a deep understanding of what developers need to know and how best to explain it to them. This is evident in both the clear, lucid text and the excellent sample code included in this book. Examples are the key elements in any programming book, and the examples in this book are exceptionally clear and relevant.
SQL Server 2005 is the most feature-rich version of SQL Server ever released, and many of the most significant features were developer oriented, so a book on the developer features of SQL Server 2005 is critical. Dan and Bob do an excellent job of explaining the most significant new developer-centric features and how to use them to improve your database applications. I was heavily involved in the Service Broker chapter, so naturally I think it’s the best one, but the sections on XML and CLR integration are also very good. These three features together make SQL Server 2005 a serious contender as an application platform for data-intensive applications. Understanding these new technologies is a key part of being a successful SQL Server 2005 developer, and this book is an excellent place to start learning.
I wish you luck as you embark on your journey into the next generation of database development and hope that you enjoy this book as much as I have.
Roger Wolter
Solutions Architect
SQL Server Team
Microsoft Corporation
Redmond, Washington
January 2006