I’m a big fan of the Head First series of books by O’Reilly, and noticed that they had released one of SQL. My SQL skills are pretty solid to begin with, but you can never know too much SQL so I figured I’d have to pick up Head First SQL and give it a read.
Tech books for me almost always written for a complete beginner or an expert in the field. It’s rare that you find one written for someone who already has a basic understanding, but wants to learn a bit more. Head First SQL did a really good job of explaining the basics of SQL as well as the more complex aspects of SQL.
The chapters on subqueries and joins was great for me. Those are areas that I can always get better with. Also some of the early chapters reminded me of IN and BETWEEN both of which I’d pretty much forgotten about over the years.
Another cool thing about this book is that not only is it a guide, but it also serves pretty well as a reference as well. Explaining SQL isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but Head First SQL has done the best job that I’ve read to date.