SQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Kevin E. Kline’s Acknowledgments

Many people helped deliver the big, thick book you hold in your hands. This note expresses our appreciation to those who helped make this a book reality.

First of all, Dan and Brand get a big slap on the back for working so hard to create the content you are now reading. Brand had to spend a lot of nights working on this both before and after his wedding. Thank you, Michelle, for lending us Brand when you wanted him the most.

Next, Jonathan Gennick, our editor at O’Reilly Media, gets a warm handshake and squeeze on the shoulder. You travailed through many extra months of hard labor bringing this book out of the shadows and into the light. I think there’s a special blessing in store for those who’ve carried themselves with as much patience, professionalism, and good humor as you.

We must also express deep thanks and appreciation to our technical reviewers who caught many errors, omissions, and plain ol’ mistakes and diverted us from many embarrassments:

• ANSI SQL — Peter Gulutzan, author of SQL-99 Complete, Really and SQL Performance Tuning

• DB2 — Doug Doole, Bobby Fielding, and Richard Swagerman of IBM; Josh Steffan of Quest Software

• MySQL — Paul DuBois, author of MySQL

• Oracle — Phani Arega of Quest Software and the reviewers at Oracle

• PostgreSQL — Thomas Lockhart, original author of the PostgreSQL open source documentation

• SQL Server — Baya Pavliashvili of Healthstream, Inc.

• Database Programming — Brian LaLonde

To all of my colleagues at Quest Software go a very big thanks for your support and encouragement. Rony Lerner, Deb Jenson, Eyal Aronoff, John Newsom, and Vinny Smith: thank you for investing your trust in me and making these last three years with Quest Software such a blast.

Thank you to all the guys on the SQL Server team for making our products the best on the market: John Theron, Patrick O’Keeffe, John Ortega, Mark Simon, Hasan Fahimi, Lee Grissom, Joe Motley, Adrian Tudor, Israel Kalush, Amit Kubovsky, and Ross Doering. I couldn’t ask for a better team or a better set of friends.

Thanks to the SQL Server team at Microsoft for keeping me in the know: Euan Garden, Richard Waymire, Joe Yong, Don Peterson, Mark Sousa, Steven Dybing, Fernando Caro, Tom Rizzo, and Bill Baker. Your product rocks!

Finally, a word for my family. It’s hard to work ridiculously long hours for months on end, between the day job and the book project, without making some sacrifices. And yet, somehow, we managed to spend so much good time together. Katie Jo, you’ve learned how to talk between the time I started and the time I finished. I still get choked up hearing you say “Yi yove you, daddy.” Anna Lynn, your super powers rescued me plenty of times when I was down. I want to hear “Supergirl to da rescue!” the next time I need rescuing. Here’s a secret: I keep that jar of fresh pistachios on my desk just because they’re your favorite. Emily, thank you for letting me paint your nails. Some daughters don’t let their dads that close. Dylan, you whipped me at so many games on the PS2 that I don’t know why you still want me to play with you. But, one day, the ol’ man is gonna take you down! Kelly, you are my tonic, my therapy, and my medicine. Just a touch or a glance or a smile from you and my night turns to day and my despair to hope. Thank you for loving me, supporting me, and seeing me through this project.