Beginning T-SQL with Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 and 2008

Acknowledgments

This book wouldn't exist without the hard work and dedication of my coauthor, Dan Wood. Dan's a good friend, a true professional, a great father and husband-and I hear he's an okay football coach. Thanks to Bob Elliot and John Sleeva at Wrox who have been incredibly patient and professional with two completely over-committed authors for the past year. DJ Norton did a great job with the technical review. Thanks, DJ, for breaking my code and making more work for me. Thanks to Lance Baldwin and Drew Naukam on Hitachi Consulting's Microsoft Strategic Alliance team for giving me the space to complete this and the Reporting Services book this year. To all of the amazing people I work with at Hitachi Consulting, thanks for making this such a terrific organization for our clients and a great place to call home.

—Paul Turley

I'd like to thank Paul Turley, who is not only a great friend, but an amazing person, and I appreciate the opportunity to work with him again. Many thanks to our Wrox development editor, John Sleeva, who did an outstanding editing job—not to mention the job he did working with us, which was probably very much like herding cats. Special thanks go to the awesome development team at Avalara for a rewarding and stimulating work environment and for giving me inspiration for many of the examples in this book. Most important, I would like to thank my wonderful wife, Sarah, for all her patience and support as I disappeared for hours at a time and spent many a late ...