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Summary: I just want to say I love the book
Review: I just wanted to get on here and say I love the book. I bought it recently at the PASS conference in Denver, and Henderson was good enough to sign it for me despite having signed dozens ahead of me and being late for his session.The book is a testament to what technical books can be if authors are honest and know their subject material. I love the writing style and all the examples. The book perfectly balances theory and practical application. Most theory books are lightweights when it comes to giving you things you can actually use. Not this one. And most books with copious example code skimp by on the explanations behind the code. It seems you just can't get both in one book, but that's not true of this one. It exemplifies the best of computing books. And I would just like to say that this book is very worthy of the many great reviews on this site. If any computer book ever was, this book is very deserving of the high marks other readers have given it. I almost didn't post this review because so many had said the same thing I'm saying before me, but I just had to tell someone what a great help the book has been to me.
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Summary: This book changed the way I write T-SQL
Review: This book changed the way I write T-SQL. I approach it now more as a language than a scripting facility. It's so powerful. There's so much you can do. I guess the best parts of the book are the ones that show off some of this power. My personal favorites are: 1. The select chapter. Has to be the best narrative I've read on the select command. I had no idea you could do so much with it. 2. The admin stored procedures chapter. Here's a goldmine of good, production-quality code. 3. The undocumented chapter. Why doesn't MicroSoft document these? This chapter provides good insight into how SQL Server works behind the scenes. It's just a great book through and through. There's no filler or other nonsense -- just great writing and great code, the way a coding book should be.
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Summary: The OLE automation chapter is worth the price alone
Review: Such a great wealth of code! I've never seen such a complete example code set in one book. For me, the OLE automation chapter was worth the price of the book all by itself. I've been wondering for some time how to use this poorly documented part of the Transact-SQL language. The book told me everything I needed to know and more and provided numerous high-quality examples. Sp_generate_script, for example, lets me generate a script for any object on the server (it uses SQL's DMO COM objects). I would have paid what I did for the book just to get this example code. The book says in the Preface that it intends to deliver code that people could use in production if they wanted to. I'd say it does this quite well. The book is an extremely good value.
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Summary: Great statistics functions and other advanced code examples
Review: Someone on the newsgroups recommended this book because I was having trouble getting some statistical Transact-SQL I had written to work. I started reading this last week and was blown away. I can't believe all the things you can do!! The sections in the book on Sets, Sequences, Runs, Hierarchies, Arrays, and Statistical Functions are the best I have seen. They got me going immediately. I had working code within an hour of opening the book. These sections would ge good reading even for the non-Transact-SQL programmer. Henderson has a dynamite way of explaining the nitty-gritty details of how things work in understandable terms. And the code provided actually runs, unlike the code in another book I bought for the same purpose. It runs and it runs fast! This is one great book.
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Summary: A great advanced T-SQL book
Review: I have read all the other T-SQL books and this one is by far the best of them. It is the only truly advanced book on T-SQL that I've seen (I have the O'Reilly and Apress books - this one is much better). What I like the most is the way the author goes to such pains to explain everything in detail. He has obviously been in the trenches a time or two. Add to this 600+ code samples and you have an expert-level book that every T-SQL programmer should read.
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Summary: The best book I have found on Transact-SQL
Review: This is one fine book. The learning curve is steep because it is written to the advanced crowd, but once you get there, it's well worth the trip. What I like the most is the author's way of explaining things. He has a knack for saying just the right things and using just the right examples to explain a point. I've never read a book like this before. It has opened my eyes to all you can do with Transact-SQL.
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Summary: Celko wrote the foreword -- need I say more?
Review: When one of the most respected people in the industry writes the foreword to a book like this, you tend to take notice. At least that's what I did. When I heard Joe Celko had written the foreword to this book, I rushed out and bought it. I was not disappointed. This book is a Celko-esque treatment of the Transact-SQL query script language. Just as Celko tends to delve deeply into difficult SQL-related topics, this book leaves no stone unturned as it relates to Transact-SQL. It delves into every corner of the language and explores one valuable topic after another. Things like statistics, sets, arrays, hiearchies, OLE Automation, full-text search, transactions, cursors, administrative stored procedures, and on and on -- it covers them all. I couldn't be happier with the book. It's probably the best one I've bought in a long, long time. I guess when Joe Celko talks, people listen. I'm glad I did.
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Summary: Changed my life
Review: This book changed my life. I was really in a fog about TSQL when I got it, but the lights have definitely come on. I come from an Informix and Oracle background, so TSQL was a complete left turn for me. I just couldn't seem to get it. Then I got this book. It lifted the haze. It taught me to treat TSQL like any other programming language I've learned. I got past my mental block and finally grasped the language and all its power. What this book does that others don't is twofold: it forces you to think in TSQL because it builds on the TSQL you've learned by teaching you in TSQL. By the end of the book, you come by it naturally. Second, it doesn't settle for dumping cool tricks on you -- it explains everything. Henderson writes the way that people speak, as he says in the front of the book, and that's the best way to communicate. It felt like I was sitting in a classroom with him at the board teaching me from the ground up. Bottom line: get this book if you want to master TSQL.
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Summary: A classic I turn to again and again
Review: I bought this book almost two years ago and have nearly worn it out with use. It is full of great code and examples. I have learned more from it than I learned the 5 years before that from all the other books I read and from working with SQL Server itself. 600 code samples + expert-level explanations and teaching = the best SQL Server book money can buy.
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Summary: Wonderful book
Review: A great book that took me from a beginner to an advanced coder literally overnite. Worth every penny.
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