Rating: 
Summary: If you want to become a T-SQL guru yourself, get this book
Review: Ah, where to begin. This book is a masterpiece. It is over the top. It distills, in one volume, all that's worth knowing about advanced Transact-SQL. If you've read the Books Online, this book is a natural next step in your T-SQL education. It took me from a rank amateur to an advanced coder within days. It gave me insights into new ways of coding that I'd never have thought of on my own. It showed me how to work in harmony with T-SQL and SQL Server, rather than try to get them to do things they weren't designed to do. The best chapters, are, IMHO, these: - DML Insights - DDL Insights - The Mighty SELECT - Statistical Functions - Transactions - Cursors - Sets - Arrays - Stored Procedures and Triggers - T-SQL Performance Tuning - Administrative T-SQL - OLE Automation - Undocumented T-SQL There's so much good info in this book, it's hard to pick a list of the "best chapters." To be sure, there's not a weak chapter in the book, and you should read every last one of them. Another reviewer called this book the ultimate magnum opus for T-SQL. He was right. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about coding in Transact-SQL.
Rating:
Summary: Concentrated, well-written, with lots of expert advice
Review: The best thing about this book is that it doesn't follow the example of most of the other SQL Server books out there -- it doesn't settle for merely repeating the Books Online. Instead, it fills in the details the BOL leaves out and provides expert advice that only a guru could. I've been a certified SQL Server DBA since Microsoft first offered the certification, and I can say that this book is hands down the best T-SQL book around, as Joe Celko says in the book's Foreword. Beyond that, it's the best book I've seen on _any_ SQL dialect - Microsoft or otherwise. The best parts of the book are the early chapters. The Data Types chapter, for example, provides an expansive tour through the many nuances of the SQL Server data types, including the new ones introduced by SQL Server 7.0. The new GUID type, for example, is covered in detail, and expert comparisons with other similar types are offered. The Nulls chapter is also a gem. Most database writers avoid getting drawn into the sometimes philosophical debate over missing values. Henderson handles the subject adroitly and succinctly -- recommending a course of action without sounding religious. The DDL Insights and DML Insights chapters are also quite good. The book could have stooped to merely regurgitating the BOL, but this book doesn't do that. So, instead of a 100 pages each on DML and DDL, with have two chapters of about ten pages a piece that focus on the things not mentioned by the BOL -- things only a guru would know. The chapter titled The Mighty SELECT Statement is the crown jewel of the book. I was well aware of most of the things SELECT could do before I ever read this book, however, this book takes the subject to a new level. It exposes features and power even veterans like myself would normally miss. It showed me ways of making SELECT work for me that I'd never even dreamed of. I used one of the techniques it illustrates just yesterday and blew my coworkers away. Like many of the techniques in this book, that one tip alone was worth the price of the book. All around, I'd say this is the best investment you can make with your SQL Server $$. If you want to know Transact-SQL like the gurus do, read this book and learn it inside out.
Rating:
Summary: Must have for MS SQL Programmers
Review: I maintain several ASP applications with MS SQL backends and with this book I'm able to do things with SQL queries I never thought possible. This book has a thorough index and great code examples making it a perfect reference manual for solving complex SQL query problems. This is the only book you'll need for Transact-SQL.
Rating: 
Summary: Novice material, nothing even close to master level material
Review: The ads all have this as the best book on everything. They all have helpful votes piled up on them in 10 minutes time.
I think, like others, that is fake.
Read the reviews and you too will see they follow a low intelligence generalized method of marketing.
the book is weak in all areas. nothing in the book is cohesive or would be used to write enterprise code. weak on XML
weak on writing style
absent of reference material
absent of examples
absent of being up to date on the technology
weak on stored procs, they are not tied back to anything.
weak on idioms. very obvious beginner statements. This book is either for junior high students or is poorly written and has a large sales force. One of the force shows under sourceforge.net, a marketing firm that you hire to put in good words on your product. Makes me wonder on this one If you read through the child like reviews you too will see there is a pattern undeniably done by a marketing force.
Rating:
Summary: very outdated on query writing, novice level information
Review: First about me: I employ over 5000 developers working on SQL server solutions for some of the largest companies in the world. Now about the book: It contains zero reference material. There are no quick lookups on anything related to sql server a professional needs at her fingertips. Found that distracting. There is no conclusion to most topics, it's as though the author did not know how to finish, or start for that matter, and each chapter is ALL TEXT with no visual reference points at all. It's like trying to learn to operate an aircraft without ever getting inside it and flying it. That is exactly what it feels like. Also there is no continuity of topics or subject. Very weak in this area The examples never go beyond the type of a few column, a favorite is one column has an identity field the other null or an integer if something really finally happens. Not instructive to my people in the least. None of the entire team will use any of these btw. The ads are too child-like. If you read through them you find "best ever", "grandslam", "wowed me" things you expect to see a child write about their favorite childrens book. They are like that throughout. Also, the ads follow a distinct pattern which others keep addressing but they get talked over with the child like ads. If a woman puts out an opinion on this series that is not great, new reviews show up immediately say how great the book is in the exact areas she found weak. Another child like action that has my team rolling. They always say the writer must have a hundred thousand relatives. The number or helpful votes on new ads show up right away in lots of 30 to 50. We've never seen anything so fake. In one morning in an hours time I was told 50 votes were put on the book in 5 minutes time. That was all 3 books. 50 times the number of reviews of all books!
Again this morning it happen after a few 3 star or maybe 2 star reviews. We don't understand this system of large numbers of childlike people doing this? It sure doesn't sell it to us as we would never buy another volume again after finding how weak they are in all areas. They are very behind the times. No information that is current or relevant. You will be very disappointed. guaranteed.
Rating:
Summary: None better
Review: There are Sql books and then there are Sql books. This is by far the best Sql book I have found. By "Sql" I mean a book about writing Sql code, not a DBA book. Even though much of this code is specific to MS Sql Server, it will teach you something regardless of your platform - I guarantee it. Henderson mentions in the preface that he wanted to model the book after Celko's books, and I think it succeeds very well. This book is like Sql for Smarties except that the code actually runs <g> (if you have MS Sql Server 2000) Celko actually wrote the forward for this book, and I can see why. This is a chip off the old block if I ever saw it. However, unlike Celko's work, much of which demonstrates itself with code that doesn't run on any particular platform, this code all works and has utility apart from the book. Take for example the sp_find_root_blocker code. Our DBAs use that every day around here. They had some hack they had written themselves before I showed them the Administrative Transact-Sql chapter in this book. Now they use sp_find_root_blocker and two or three of the other adminstrative examples on a regular basis. You might point out: but isn't that adminstrative code specific to MS Sql? Yes it is. In fact, it won't run on the 6.5 release of the product-you will need 7.0 or 2000, 2000 for some of the examples. But who cares. Isn't that better than not running on any particular platform as is the case with so much of Celko's stuff?
Rating:
Summary: For people who want to master the language
Review: The thing you will notice about this book is that it is not titled "GG to Sql Server" it is titled "GG to Transact-Sql." This is the book to read if you want to master the Transact-Sql language. The volume of expert code shown here is simply mind boggling. Who knew you could do so much with the language? Sets? Statistics? Arrays? Hierarchies? Clipping? Runs? Regions? This book has it all. Understand that the book requires at least Sql Server 7.0. Much of the code will not run on earlier versions. But if you have Sql Server 7.0 or 2000 you should be fine. As with all three Guru books, the thing to do with this one is work through the examples as you read. Mine has had coffee spilled in it a couple of times for that reason. You get more out of it by working through the code rather than just reading over it. I found myself thinking up new approaches to old problems as I worked through the code. Coding gets the creative juices flowing and I know my retention is much better when I can take something I'm reading and apply it concretely. The other thing I like about this book is the attention to ANSI compliance. All the code in this book will run on Sql Server 7 or 2000 with the ANSI settings enabled. That's not true of the O'Rielly book - much of it won't. This always uses ANSI join syntax and the newest enhancements for Sql Server to demonstrate code that is not only useful but also portable between versions and maintenance free.
Rating: 
Summary: Short on examples and usage
Review: Some talk of the "new" sqlxml in the gg series of books. I've seen very large laments on the gg series of books and claims of managing extremely large implementations, yet this team finds xml new. It was being used by large companies as far back as 4 years. Four year old techology is just now being proclaimed as the next new thing. That is the common thing with this series. It's behind the times of the real professionals inthe United States of America who have been using sqlxml since 2000 in a very serious way. Most developers have moved far beyond this now with web based services and sqlxml implementations that of a new breed altogether. It's what all major forces in IT today are doing. Again, it's plain from the examples and statements this series and it's followers are on a much more conservative track. If you are serious about technology, this series is just, plain and simple, way too conservative for you. The XML chapters are so light on the technology it is actually behind the material we were using 4 years ago. There are absolutely ESSENTIAL technologies within SQLXML that are not even mentioned in the latest book. No serious developer can go anywhere beyond a few table transformations with this series. That is it. SQLXML goes so far beyond that and it's apparent the writer adn readers are unaware of it at this time. As a rule all of the books in this series are seriously behind the cutting edge by at least 4 to 5 years. There is no debate about this, simply look at the topics in these books and compare it to books much older and you will find the same material, only typically in much more detail with excellent graphics and examples that use actual sales or other business type examples. Not a four or five table example with Ken's hot sauce as the complete XML chapter's examples.
There are professional SQL server guides that were put out in 2000 that cover SQLXML far and away better than the most current book in this series.
Way too conservative and outdated in all editions.
Rating:
Summary: Lacks examples and any tie to real life usage
Review: This book is full of sql queries that would not support or in any way have anything to do with managing terabyte sized implementations. It was odd to find that no VP for any major comm. company can be found with that name. However, there is a mass mailing and electronic marketing schemer that has been in court for fraud by that name. I don't know if there is any tie, I'm only saying what I found. The company offers services to "flood" email and other electronic sources for advertisment purposes. It is connected w/ sourceforge.net. Doesn't sound legit to me if this is the one. It was the only name that matched that of the vp of production. Makes sense considering this series is monitored by a service that provides false marketing. Hundreds of thousands of votes in one day, stellar reviews on demand if anything not acceptable shows as a review.
Never heard of a telecommunication company that did IT for thousand server companies too often either.
This book is in book two and in book three. It's repeated each time and the material is weak with no reference, no real world examples, no methods used by leading developers at microsoft itself. Maybe it explains why the author no longer works on the product. The books read as though the use of queries has been studied quite well, unfortunately there is nary an example of how any of these unique methods can be leveraged in the real world, and you never see that from any of those that claim it's the best book they ever did read, yuk yuk. Generalities. Never a specific example. We are implementing the "arrays" as I speak. What are you using them for?
Why are all the ads in such vague marketing level language?
The answer is obvious.
This book was written before sql 2000 and the code starts bombing in QA in chapter one and doesn't slow down. It's poorly put together, the code is awful. That is just the truth of the matter. The names on the CD in no way match the book so you have to hunt and try, hunt and try. Worthless. The code is really bad, i've not seen that many mistakes in code ever.
Rating:
Summary: Best coding book for Sql 2000, great series overall
Review: First, a little about me:
I am the VP of development for a large communications firm. We build communciations software based on Sql Server and have customers around the world. Our largest customer is a multi-terabyte implentation with thousands of servers. We serve about 20,000 customers worldwide. Now about the books: The guru's guide series of books has everything you need to learn to use Sql Server at an enterprise level. Most books are task-oriented -- that is, they teach you how to do one thing or another. The gg books are different: they teach you how things actually work. As Mr. Campbell, the product manager for Sql Server, says in the forward, Henderson is an author is obviously not satisfied with surface explanations or shallow understanding. These books reek of deep knowledge and insight. They are all you need to use Sql Server productively in the enterprise. I will now talk about the things I liked about each book. The Guru's Guide to Transact-Sql is simply the best book on the planet for mastering Transact-Sql. Since Transact-Sql is the language by which applications communicate with Sql Server, this is essential. This book is a fresh look at a language that has been around since the early 90's. It shows all the new features as well as numerous old tricks. It shows how to get more value from the language and use it to do things that most Transact-Sql coders simply don't know about. There is one novel technique after another in this book, one solution to hard problems facing enterprise applications after another. This book should be the cornerstone to any shop developing software for Sql Server. The second book in the series is the Guru's Guide to Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML. This book does two things: it picks up where the first book leaves off and takes the discussion of getting the most out of Transact-Sql a step further. It also introduces you to SQLXML, Sql Server 2000's new XML-based feature set. There are several chapters on SQLXML alone and they even include a basic XML primer which the developers working for me absolutely loved. The book is actually even better than the first guru's guide which surprised most of my developers and architects. I would say it is our favorite development book for Sql Server thanks to topics like design patterns, testing, refactoring, coding conventions, and source code management that no other Sql Server development book talks about but that this book dedicates whole chapters to. This book is professional Sql Server development for the masses. It elevates Transact-Sql and SQLXML develoment from a haven for hackers to a professional engineering discipline, something the programming manager who works for me swears by. The Guru's Guide to Sql Server Internals and Architecture is the last book in the series. I personally believe it is the best of the series, but others on my team still favor the second book. It picks up where the first two books leave off and updates what they had to say on certain topics. For example, it updates the SQLXML coverage in the second book and covers all the new SQLXML features that have appeared in the Web releases since the second book was written. It updates the coverage of distributed partitioned views in the earlier books to reflect bug fixes in that technology. It also updates topics discussed in the previous books by going more into their architectural and design details. For example, it updates the discussion of Full Text Services from the first book by talking about how the technology is designed and why it is so. This a must read for any one working with the technology, especially large enterprises that depend on it. The other thing I like about the new book is how it covers so much of the product. Inside Sql Server 2000 covers what turns out to be a pretty narrow slice of the Sql Server. This book covers all that that book does and then some. For example, there are great chapters on Notification Services, DTS, replication, server federations, FTS, ODSOLE, and many others. Each one is packed with useful info for people creating enterprise-class software on the Sql Server platform. Each one is a must read for anyone working with the respective technology. A common feature of all the book is how pragmatic they are, how practically useful the techniques they teach and the code they provide is. There are literally hundreds of sample code files included on the CD with each of the books. I counted over 1000 on the last book alone. Much of this code can be used in production without modification. Unlike a lot of book code, this code doesn't just teach, it is also very practically useful. The best feature of all for these three book is how well written they are. Henderson mentions that he not one for longwindedness or artiface in his writing, and my team has found these books very plainspoken and very readable. What you get here is great writing from a master teacher who obviously knows Sql Server inside-out. One last thought: this series of books is a must read for enterprise-class customers because it stresses one thing over and over: you must really understand a technology inside-out and comprehensively to use it optimally. The importance of this truth only increases with the size and complexity of the technology and the implementation. If you rely on Sql Server for you enterprise as we do, you should buy a copy of each book in this series for everyone who touches Sql Server.
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