SQL - trying to learn basics
 

I am trying to pick up some knowledge of SQL, and would like to get a book to help study. I want to be able to gain general knowledge and possibly work on some sample databases/queries. Anyone have any advice on what books they have used and which ones might be best for me to pickup? I got my MCSE from basically reading books and experience. I usually learn more from books than I would from a class atmosphere. I will be working mostly with MS SQL and not MySQL if that helps/matters any.

Thanks

SQL should be fairly easy no matter what DB you use.. of course Microsoft doesn't follow the standards.

http://www.devshed.com/
http://www.phpbuilder.net/
http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_intro.asp
http://sqlzoo.net/

Trache - thanks for the tips on those sites. I am going to check them out right now. Appreciate the help!

If you are the kind of person who needs to know why as well as how, try to find a good resource just for database theory. Normalization, relational algebra, query optimization are all concepts worth understanding. Not to mention they show up in job interview questions if you claim to know much about databases. I dont know any off hand and im too lazy to go dig out the text book from databases class.

I would also look at ER diagrams and translating them into tables (one-one, many-one, many-many). It will help you become proficient in taking a design into implementation and figuring out database schemas. Granted they aren't usually this detailed, but bugzilla has a good example (http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/2.16/html/dbschema.html)