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SQL Antipatterns
book

SQL Antipatterns

by Bill Karwin
June 2010
Intermediate to advanced
328 pages
7h 51m
English
Pragmatic Bookshelf
Content preview from SQL Antipatterns

Antipattern: Using Indexes Without a Plan

When we choose our indexes by guessing, we inevitably make some wrong choices. Misunderstandings about when to use indexes leads to mistakes in one of these three categories:

  • Defining no indexes or not enough indexes

  • Defining too many indexes or indexes that don’t help

  • Running queries that no index can help

No Indexes

We commonly read that a database incurs overhead as it keeps an index up-to-date. Each time we use INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE, the database has to update the index data structures for that table to be consistent so that our subsequent searches use these indexes to find the right set of rows reliably.

We’re trained to think that overhead means waste. So when we read that the database ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781680500073Errata Page