Rob Farley

Rob Rob Farley has been consulting in IT since completing a Computer Science degree with first class honours in 1997. Before moving to Adelaide, he worked in consultancies in Melbourne and London. He runs the development department in one of Australia's leading IT firms, as well as doing database application consultancy and training. He heads up the Adelaide SQL Server User Group, and holds several Microsoft certifications.

Rob has been involved with Microsoft technologies for most of his career, but has also done significant work with Oracle and Unix systems. His preferred database is SQL Server and his preferred language is C#. Recently he has been involved with Microsoft Learning in the US, creating and reviewing new content for the next generation of Microsoft exams.

Over the years, Rob's clients have included BP Oil, OneLink Transit, Accenture, Avanade, Australian Electorial Commission, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Royal Borough of Kingston, Help The Aged, Unisys, Department of Treasury and Finance (Vic), National Mutual, the Bible Society and others.

Did you mean to come here? My blog is now at http://msmvps.com/blogs/robfarley



20 April 2005

SQL isn't hard!

Haha... I just showed this blog page to the friend of mine I referred to in the blog below. He told me that I made it sound like he had a clue. Thing is... I reckon he does.

SQL shouldn't be hard! Typically, people confuse themselves with SQL, instead of just thinking about it in a straight-forward way. I think if you're getting confused about writing a SQL statement, then just try to do it more slowly. Put something together than queries everything you might need to use. Then try to make sure that each record is reflected properly. Then apply your aggregations, etc, and you'll probably find that you can get your query done correctly first time.

Oh, and I try to get people to avoid using graphical tools to write their queries. I think they just make things worse. Of course they can help with joins, but joins aren't very hard either. Just learn the syntax, and try writing your queries out from scratch. Chances are you'll quickly learn to do it well.

Posted by Rob Farley at 5:27 pm