(Part 2) Best products from r/SQL

You might not be doing anything wrong. The job search process is not a straightforward endeavor and you don't have insight into what's going on in the mind of the person across the table. Maybe they hired someone else because of nepotism. Maybe they didn't like the color of your tie. There's no telling. That said, there are probably things you could be doing better (which is true for everyone), but don't start with the assumption that you're doing something wrong. That can be counterproductive.

There are many options to volunteer outside of churches. (Though there are churches where you could volunteer without being a Christian anyway.) So, /u/admiralwaffles point about volunteering to build out your portfolio of completed DB projects is a good one. And volunteering is a good way to stay sane while going through the grueling and lonely process of the job search, because it provides the opportunity to work on interesting things and interact with other humans. If you're interested, pick something that you like and want to get better at and you'll be enhancing your skills at the same time you proving them and you'll create professional references you can include in your job applications.

You mentioned you have built projects with your new skills. Do you have them listed in your resume or cover letter? And do you have a way to show them to potential employers? Being able to demonstrate an interesting portfolio of work communicates much more to a hiring manager about your actual skills than saying that you completed some online courses.

For general job search advice, check out some of Donald Asher's books, like:

• "Cracking The Hidden Job Market: How to Find Opportunity in Any Economy", or
  
• "How to Get Any Job"
  
  He has some good insights into how to be more efficient at the search process and to find job opportunities that aren't immediately obvious.

Hey hey, maybe a little late but wanted to post my experience as I started in my current position with very little sql experience and was able to ramp up quickly.

I started with the Harvard online courses on databases, it’s free. The biggest help I found was this book on Amazon: SQL: Visual QuickStart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides). You should be able to find this for less than the 40 bucks, but still a good investment regardless.

Understand that types of SQL vary but are all inherently similar. I use Teradata, Oracle and SQL Server pretty much daily.

For certification, I’d recommend any of the Microsoft certificates, MCSE. Personally I’m working towards the Data Information and Analytics as its the best fit for me.

One of my mentors once told me there are 10 types of DBA, and I honestly agree with that sentiment highly. Which subtypes are you looking at mastering? Programming tsql/plsql/etc, database architecture, database tuning, database maintenance and physical design, application accessibility in a database, advanced query design? What draws you to sql?

for the record, BI probably most interesting is gonna be architecture and query design. For architecture, I'd read the Kimball series. For query design, depends on the language. I can say that for MSSQL, http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Microsoft-SQL-Server-2005/dp/0735623139 is a great book. The inside MSSQL book, however, is not my first reccommendation for neophytes. If you've got a good six-seven months of sql experience on the job it's great; for first learning sql querying there are likely better books (dunno which, sorry).

Sr. DBA here. There are actually a few categories of DBA.

The primary ones seem to be Operational DBA and Development/Application DBA. There are of course hybrids, and everyone's role varies depending on the need of their department.

Operational DBA's usually handle the System side of things: Security, backups, replication, etc.

Development DBA's usually handle the code base itself, with some interaction with Security, Backups, replication, Code Repository, and development/tuning. This is the category I fall in (and the one I assume you're interested in as you seem like you want to code).

I'd suggest checking out BrentOzar's site, which has cool blogs and the Office Hours Podcast (which is awesome).

My favorite DBA book so far: Database Administration: The Complete Guide to DBA Practices and Procedures (2nd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321822943/

Microsoft Docs : This page is an excellent resource as well. You can download SQL server developer (AKA Express) and have your personal server on your machine. You can use Brent Ozar's guide to install it, then download the Stack Overflow database from his site. to get some data.

Select is exactly as it implies, it is what you are selecting. Performance wise, it's the same to say, give me everything vs give me one or two things. It's best to specify what you want, because if you don't need everything, you're going to pull a lot of network time trying to pull more data across. Also, it can break things. Example: My beginning point has 5 columns and so does my end point, I get sloppy, I just say, hey, just grab everything from my beginning point, insert it into my end point. What if I add a column in the future? It will break your code because the end point has 5 columns, but you added a 6th column to your beginning point and told it to grab everything.

For joins, practice. Lots of practice. This covers joins well: https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins/

Here are some books I'd highly recommend:

First book to read

Second book

Go download SQL 2016 developer, almost the same as enterprise and free. They have a huge DB for it that you can practice in.

Here are a couple general goto lists for freely available technical material on the web.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books
http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks/

That said, I've never found a great comprehensive introduction to SQL online, though section two of the PostgreSQL manual is an adequate overview. When you really need to ramp up quickly, it's a better use of time to find a good book. If you need to do this on the cheap and live in or near a major metro, don't overlook the public library for reference material. The SQL language has been stable for a long time, and you don't need an absolutely current book to pick up the basics.

Safari Bookshelf is another fantastic option. This gives you access to nearly everything from O'Reilly. Microsoft Press, Apress, and other major tech publishers. There's a ten day free trial, and it might be worth subscribing for a month or two if ten days isn't sufficient.

So, to the recommendations.
As you're probably aware, trial versions of SQL Server are available freely from Microsoft. If you're already on Windows, this is probably the most straightforward way to begin with minimum installation hassles. Most tutorials covering SQL Server reference either the old Northwind (no longer included with SQL Server 2005 and up, but available here) or the newer AdventureWorks sample databases.

If she's fairly technical, she might jump into the deep end with something like T-SQL Fundamentals (see library, safari books, or read it at a bookstore for the cost of a cup of coffee)

For a slower start, look into an introductory book on Microsoft Reporting Services. (MS's answer to Crystal Reports, included with SQL Server) Avoid theMS Press Step by Step series, as it is almost universally crap. Larson's books are a better starting point. See Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services or similar. These will cover SQL in the context of generating reports with graphical tools, which may be a more palatable start for the non-programmer.

The first step for me is always defining the use case. You can't really know the best way to model data without knowing how it's going to be used.

A book you might find useful is Data Modeling Made Simple, by Steve Hoberman. I was fortunate enough to work at a place that just paid Steve to come in and give a week long seminar on data modeling, which definitely helped me brush up on the principles I learned in school.

Your best bet is to get a book and do all the examples you can (short of your restrictions). My personal favorite is SQL Essentials. By all means but it used. Others may have better choices but find one that is good for you and experiment.

This. SAS' PROC SQL is woefully inadequate (I can't tell you how many times I've cursed it for remerging instead of just bloody well failing and telling me that it's not a valid query) and is based on something like the 1990 or 1991 ANSI standard (because NOTHING has changed in databases since then, right?).

When I first started with SQL, then I also found The Language of SQL to be very helpful, but it's NOT written for SAS users. Once you get up to speed, then if you'll be working with multiple SQL flavors (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, etc.), I recommend the SQL Cookbook as a great reference when you know WHAT you need to do but don't know how to actually do it in Oracle/SQL Server/DB2/MySql.

As for resources aimed at people who know SAS but don't know SQL, then here are a few SAS white papers that might be helpful:

• http://minnsug.org/wrp/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Queries-Made-Easy-with-SAS-Enterprise-Guide.pdf
  
• http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi29/269-29.pdf
  
• http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings12/251-2012.pdf

>dynamic sql is a pain to read and alter, generally there are better ways to do stuff.

Yes, but sometimes it is the least-bad solution to a problem.

You might find this book helpful in dealing with dynamic SQL and finding the right uses for it.

Jeremiah Peschka also has (had) a PASS Summit session that's helpful, http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2014/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=6071. If you have access to the 2014 PASS Summit recordings, you can watch it instead of just looking at the demos & slides (linked).

Never read it, but it was recommended to me by an app dev a few years ago. Access 2007: The Missing Manual. The Stanford DB course is pretty good, might want to check out microsoft training materials. Check out SQLcourse as well.

Hey Chicagoan here as well. You're lucky to find a place that gives reimbursement for your SQL classes. I too looked for a long time around chicago to no avail. I pretty much just taught myself using the books online through amazon and the tutorials there as well. They worked well for me, and as with all things you only get out what you put into it.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Microsoft%C2%AE-SQL-Server%C2%AE-2008/dp/0735626030/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1372191271&sr=8-9&keywords=sql+server+2008

EDIT * - go hawks!

This this the book I'm using and I'm quite happy with it. It's not free, but it's only like $4 second hand.

I’d have to say these were a great combo in my SQL class last year:

SQL Queries For Mere Mortals

and

Murach’s MySQL

Jon Duckett also has a MySQL & PHP book coming out next month that I’m looking forward to. Loved his books on HTML/CSS and Javascript/JQuery

PHP & MySQL: Server Side Web Development

I'm very much enjoying The Pheonix Project right now. It gives you a good view of DBA's (as well as other IT professionals) in the context of an entire IT department.

I used this when I first started -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sams-Teach-Yourself-SQL-Minutes/dp/0672321289

Pretty simple and great to get the fundamentals!

Sorry I'm coming in here so late, but "Database Design for Mere Mortals" is where I learned from.

Good tables, good relationships, good life.

Warning: Databases are not easy. There's a reason that some folks specialize in them.

This is the best book to learn SQL properly: Beginning SQL Queries: From Novice to Professional

The important part is to run the examples yourself and play with it. Make up your own queries and figure out how to get them to work. That's what you'll be doing all the time anyway.

After that, pick any of the books for your DB vendors SQL dialect. But first, get the fundamentals right.

This is spread throughout the world of computer science, but you can basically think of an optimizer as a dedicated search engine. Different types of access and activity are given default scores. Metadata is maintained by the database engine and that metadata is fed into a variety of algorithms in order to figure out what will be the shortest path to query results.

This is covered in a few papers listed in the CS286 syllabus and Readings in Database Systems.

The future execution time is just a guess and isn't represented as a time but as an arbitrary cost based on the bogus scores that are assigned to each operation.

I recommend [SQL Queries for Mere Mortals ($36.64)](SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Data Manipulation in SQL (3rd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321992474/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_nCQrybW9TPPNN) and [Database Design for Mere Mortals ($31.57)](Database Design for Mere Mortals: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design (3rd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321884493/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CDQrybA2508FS)

Both helped guide me through my masters program, and they are fairly affordable.