Bluedog67

Random Thoughts About SQL Server and My Dog Blue

About Bluedog67

My name is Stephen Horne. I am a well-trained owner of an Australian Cattle Dog named Blue. I also develop software mainly using SQL Server, ASP.NET, and C#. I love data, databases, T-SQL, and turning raw data into actionable information. My plan for this blog is to write about SQL Server and sometimes my dog Blue. Please contact me at stephen at bluedog67 dot com. Follow me on Twitter at bluedog67.

SQL Server Books Online As PDF Files

I would love to see Microsoft come out with the SQL Server Books Online (SQL BOL) as PDF files. The main reason is eBook readers like Amazon's Kindle. It would be great to have SQL BOL on the Kindle.

SQL BOL has been an excellent learning and reference tool for many years. I expect that SQL BOL will be continue to be my primary learning and reference resource in my career as a SQL Server professional. You can get access to SQL BOL several ways, including as part of a SQL Server installation, as part of the locally installed MSDN Library, as a separate downloadable installation file, and via the online MSDN Library or through TechNet both on Microsoft's website. But SQL BOL currently isn't available via PDF files. Arguably you could turn the HTML pages of SQL BOL into PDF files - but that would be a huge task. So getting SQL BOL onto your Kindle is a big challenge.

Let's contrast Microsoft's SQL Server documentation with Oracle's documentation. You can find Oracle's documentation here as both HTML and PDF files. You can download the Oracle PDF files either individually or as zipped collections. The Oracle PDF files play well with the Amazon Kindle. I'd love it if SQL BOL did as well!

I have created on the Microsoft SQL Server Connect website the following suggestion to make the SQL BOL available as PDF files. If you agree please up-vote on the Microsoft Connect website. If you have any ideas or feedback please share in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

Categories: SQL Server
Posted by stephen on Saturday, January 09, 2010 3:20 AM
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Comments

David Taylor United States

Saturday, January 09, 2010 11:40 PM

David Taylor

Stephen, first, you make a good point, having an ebook/pdf format would make things *so* much easier to read through BOL.

Secondly, let me ask a question, which I think I will ask on Twitter, too. How does one really go about reading BOL? Open Table of contents and read through each link in turn? Only look up what's needed at the time? Trying to learn, and everything points to the BOL as being the best learning resource, but it's so hard to wrap my mind around because of its format!

Let me know what you think.

Stephen Horne (bluedog67) United States

Sunday, January 10, 2010 12:20 AM

Stephen Horne (bluedog67)

David: Thanks for reply! Yeah. Reading BOL is definitely a challenge. I guess I use it more as a reference to solve a particular problem or when I want to dig deeper. I've learned a ton over the years from BOL but usually in the context of a real world problem. I would actually love it if I could do the Matrix-thing with SQL BOL. Instead of "I know Kung Fu" it would be "I know SQL BOL!" Until that is possible I struggle to try and learn as much about SQL Server as quickly as I can using books, blogs, videos, training, etc in addition to BOL. Slowly but surely I am making progress. I think if BOL were available in PDF form so that you could read it on a Kindle it might become more accessible for reading it like a book - but I could be wrong! Thanks for reading and for the comment. Stephen

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