Postgres to SQL Server

Question

I'm attempting to retool myself more towards .NET (coming from an opensource background) and am looking at learning Microsoft SQL Server to complement my skills in C#. How easy would it be to transfer my skills from Postgres to Microsoft SQL Server? Furthermore would a book on SQL Server 2005 (Database Essentials - Step by Step, Microsoft Press) be a decent book to get me started or should I be looking for something a bit more recent?

Answer 1

Database programming skills (as opposed to sysop and DBA skills) transfer well among similarly-powerful though rather different DB engines. If I had to pick one helpful book it would be O'Reilly's "SQL in a Nutshell" -- compact and does a good job of pointing out differenes among several popular enginers.

Answer 2

A good SQL Server 2005 book would be fine, although if you are buying a new book you might as well get a current one.

Microsoft offers SQL Server Express and SQL Server Management Studio Express, tools which are both free. You can also get express versions of Visual Studio.

As with all database vendors, the dialect of SQL is slightly different in SQL Server than it is in PostGres, but if you already know SQL well the transition shouldn't be difficult.

Answer 3

For every day use, there is almost no difference between PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server - SQL is just SQL and pgAdmin is not very different from SQL Managment Studio.
If you interested in the details - optimizing, clustering, and stuff like that - a essentials book won't help much and you should get topic specific literatur.