Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Programming

Chapter 14. Reporting Services

There are a few chapters in my books where I've chosen to overlap content between the Beginning and Professional titles. Now, it may seem like beginning and professional topics would be mutually exclusive, but that holds true only in a perfect world where everyone is gaining experience in the same way and in the same order, and where everyone has the same definition of beginning and professional.

In case you haven't already guessed it, this is one of those chapters where, if you've read my Beginning title, you're going to notice a little bit of overlap. In the case of Reporting Services, the reasons are multifold, but a couple of the key ones are:

• Some people get into database development specifically driven by the need to control more of their own reporting destiny (in which case they may have almost started with Reporting Services, and then started learning the queries they need to support the data in the report). Others are long-term database "experts" who are just getting around to using one of those "extras" that SQL Server provides.

• It's a relatively new feature (in the grand life of SQL Server as a product), so it's "new" to many professional-level people.

Now, don't go rushing off yet if you read the chapter on Reporting in the Beginning title. While we do repeat some key items, we go a bit deeper here, and focus on more of the true developer-oriented items (and less on the model-driven aspects). Feel free, however, to skip ahead to the section ...