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Chapter 5. Diagramming Simple SQL Queries

Look ere ye leap.

John Heywood Proverbs [1546], Pt. I, Ch. 2

To convert the art of SQL tuning to a science requires a common language, a common paradigm for describing and solving SQL tuning problems. This book teaches, for the first time in print in any detail, a method that has served me well and served others I have taught over many years. I call this method the query diagramming method.

Like any new tool, the query diagramming method requires some up-front investment from the would-be tool user. However, mastery of this tool offers tremendous rewards, so I urge you to be patient; the method seems hard only for a while. Soon, it will lead you to answers you would never have found without the tool, with moderate effort, and in the end it can become so second-nature that (like the best tools) you forget you are using it.



    		Preface
    		Chapter 1. Introduction
    		Chapter 2. Data-Access Basics
    		Chapter 3. Viewing and Interpreting Execution Plans
    		Chapter 4. Controlling Execution Plans
    		Chapter 5. Diagramming Simple SQL Queries
    		5.1 Why a New Method?
    		5.2 Full Query Diagrams
    		5.3 Interpreting Query Diagrams
    		5.4 Simplified Query Diagrams
    		5.5 Exercises (See Section A.1 for the solution to each exercise.)
    		Chapter 6. Deducing the Best Execution Plan
    		Chapter 7. Diagramming and Tuning Complex SQL Queries
    		Chapter 8. Why the Diagramming Method Works
    		Chapter 9. Special Cases
    		Chapter 10. Outside-the-Box Solutions to Seemingly Unsolvable Problems
    		Appendix A. Exercise Solutions
    		Appendix B. The Full Process, End to End
    		Glossary