Defensive Database Programming by Alex Kuznetsov
Editorial Review
Resilient T-SQL code is code that is designed to last, and to
be safely reused by others. The goal of defensive database
programming, the goal of this book, is to help you to produce
resilient T-SQL code that robustly and gracefully handles cases of
unintended use, and is resilient to common changes to the database
environment.
Too often as developers, we stop work as soon as our code
passes a few basic tests to confirm that it produces the 'right
result' in a given use case. We do not stop to consider what other
possible ways in which the code might be used in the future, or how
our code will respond to common changes to the database environment,
such as a change in the database language setting, or a change to the
nullability of a table column, and so on.
In the short-term, this approach is attractive; we get things
done faster. However, if our code is designed to be used for more
than just a few months, then it is very likely that such changes can
and will occur, and the inevitable result is broken code or, even
worse, code that silently starts to behave differently, or produce
different results. When this happens, the integrity of our data is
threatened, as is the validity of the reports on which critical
business decisions are often based. At this point, months or years
later, and long after the original developer has left, begins the
painstaking process of troubleshooting and fixing the problem.
Would it not be easier to prevent all this troubleshooting
from happening? Would it not be better to spend a little more time and
effort during original development, to save considerably more time on
troubleshooting, bug fixing, retesting, and redeploying?
This is what defensive programming is all about: we learn
what can go wrong with our code, and we proactively apply this
knowledge during development. This book is filled with practical,
realistic examples of the sorts of problems that beset database
programs, including:
- Changes in database objects, such as tables, constraints, columns, and stored procedures
- Changes to concurrency and isolation levels
- Upgrades to new versions of SQL Server
- Changes in requirements
- Code reuse
- Problems causing loss of data integrity
- Problems with error handling in T-SQL
In each case, it demonstrates approaches that will help you
understand and enforce (or eliminate) the assumptions on which your
solution is based, and to improve its robustness. Ultimately, the book
teaches you how to think and develop defensively, and how to
proactively identify and eliminate potential vulnerabilities in T-SQL
code.
About the author
Alex Kuznetsov has been working with
databases for more than a decade. Currently he leads database
development and optimizes database performance for a trading firm.
Book Details
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Red Gate Books
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