New book: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Fundamentals

We’re happy to announce the availability of the newest book on SQL Server 2012 for Microsoft Press: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Fundamentals by SQL expert Itzik Ben-Gan, a mentor and co-founder of SolidQ, and a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server since 1999.

The book is a complete introductory guide to the T-SQL language—but it’s not just a set of examples and exercises (although those are present); instead, it goes beyond the basic syntactical elements of T-SQL and explains the logic behind the language and its elements.

T-SQL has many aspects that are quite different from other programming languages. This book helps readers approach T-SQL with the right mindset, so they can gain a true understanding of the language elements, learning how to think in terms of sets and how to follow solid SQL programming practices.

The book is not version-specific; it does, however, include language elements introduced in recent versions of SQL Server, including SQL Server 2012. In addition to the traditional on-premises installation, SQL Server is also available as a cloud-based service called SQL Azure. The code samples in the book were tested against both on-premise SQL Server and against SQL Azure. The book’s companion website provides information about compatibility issues between the flavors, for example, features that are available in SQL Server 2012 but not yet in SQL Azure.

You can view the complete table of contents, read the sample chapter "Single-Table Queries in Microsoft SQL Server 2012," and purchase the book at The Microsoft Press Store.