Re: some howto/theory book/tutorial on practical problem solving in SQL

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:19:19 -0700
"Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 9:32 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
> <mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:

> > My current problem is how to manage discounts in SQL, inside
> > transactions. Specifically how to "delete" promotions if they are
> > overlapping, considering I have to display discounted prices on
> > a 1M article DB and I may have hundreds of promotions running
> > and they may involve even 10% of the catalogue. But this is just
> > the beginning.

> > I skimmed through Celko books and at the moment they seems the
> > nearest thing to what I'd like to learn even if too much
> > "theoretical" at the moment. O'Reilly "SQL cookbook" is another
> > example of the kind of stuff I'm looking for... but the examples
> > are more like ingredients then recipes.

> I highly recommend Celko's SQL books.  They may seem too
> theoretical, but they have a lot of good information I found
> myself reusing all the time when I first started out.  I was a

OK... let's be more clear... they seems the books I'd surely read if
I had 1 month to find a proper solution to my problems and become a
better programmers for the years to come.
Actually from a quick glance they are definitively more practical
than a book on sets algebra ;) and among all the books I had a
chance to skim they really look the ones that could be useful and
they have a good chance to find a permanent place in my bookshelf.

Just not to misguide people.

If I had other 3 months I'd pick up Date's book.

I just remember now I gave a look to a .*postgres.*ecommerce book
but while it seems to me it could be a good book for learning some
practical postgresql and start to know the tool it was not the kind
of book that I'd title "how to solve this in SQL".

I just saw there is a "Sql Puzzles" by Celko that looks promising.
I was able to see the first 2 puzzles on Google books.
Now I'm downloading all the Open Source ecommerce apps I could
find... but having done this before I think none of them will really
exploit the DB and will rely mostly on php.
I think Open Source accounting [1] programs may have more chances to
teach me something about the problem I'd like to solve since they
tend to be less mysqlish.
If anyone know an accounting Open Source program that really exploit
postgresql as an engine I'd be glad to look at the source.

> little disconcerted by his resemblence to Anton Lavie (sp) at
> first though.

http://images.google.com/images?q=Joe+Celko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Szandor_LaVey

I think I'm going to read some Teach yourself SQL in 1fs by Laura
Lemay if I want to keep sleeping at night or I may enrol myself in
Milingo's army.

If I had eternity I wouldn't be so worried about performances so I
think I could finish War and Peace.

I just found an answer by Celko to a problem similar to mine here:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31256828/calculate-discount-by-cat.aspx

[1] accounting? just a tool that deals with discounts and an
inventory. What would be the right term to search for in google?

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it