For all the buzz about trendy IT techniques, data processing is still at the core of our systems, especially now that enterprises all over the world are confronted with exploding volumes of data. Database performance has become a major headache, and most IT departments believe that developers should provide simple SQL code to solve immediate problems and let DBAs tune any -bad SQL- later.

In The Art of SQL, author and SQL expert Stephane Faroult argues that this -safe approach- only leads to disaster. His insightful book, named after Art of War by Sun Tzu, contends that...