Book: Pro Full Text Search in SQL Server 2008 - Michael Cole, Hilary Cotter

I’ve been running a number of sessions around the world on the full-text search capabilities in SQL Server 2008. In the sessions I’ve been delivering, I find three groups of people in the room:

• People that have never used FTS in any version (most of the room)
• People that have old pain associated with FTS (some people)
• People that are using it and wondering what’s new in 2008 (almost no-one)

I think there is now a really, really good story to tell. In earlier versions of the product, FTS was a well-kept secret but was painful to manage and was problematic in terms of performance. 

In their new book: Pro Full Text Search in SQL Server 2008, Michael and Hilary do a good job of telling that story. I got to read it while travelling up to Sydney yesterday. It provides very solid coverage of iFTS in SQL Server 2008. The only aspect that I would have liked to see more coverage on was performance. However, the inclusion of a sample iFilter for LaTex was a real plus.

If you have any interest in building applications that your users will love using, you should be looking into iFTS and this book is a great introduction to the topic.

Recommended!

2009-03-10