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Summary: Not for newbies, but will make you an expert
Review: If you are looking for a Transact-SQL for Dummies book, keep looking. This book is not for rank beginners. It is instead for those who already know a bit about SQL Server and Transact-SQL and want to become experts. This book will make you an expert. I've never seen such a deep, all-encompassing collection of expert-level code and commentary in one book. Every example is packed full of useful tidbits and expert techniques. Best parts: 1. The Undocumented Transact-SQL chapter -- lots of inside tips and tricks and hidden features here 2. The Data Types chapter -- everything from a new Soundex routine to insights on how to deal with dates in Transact-SQL is here. 3. The NULLs chapter -- these trip a lot of people up. 4. The Sets chapter -- sets in Transact-SQL have never been easier or more powerful. If you study this book and learn its many wonderful lessons, you will become a Guru yourself.
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Summary: Wish I could give it fifty stars!
Review: Rather than five stars I wish I could give this book 50 stars!!! It has literally changed the way I work. I had no clue that T-SQL was this powerful. Until I read this book I was under the impression that Oracle's PL/SQL was far more powerful than T-SQL. Not anymore. Mr. Henderson has convinced me that T-SQL is vastly more powerful and that there's very little I can't do with SQL Server. Thank you for writing such a readable, comprehensive tome. You've made a real DBA of me.
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Summary: Another great book by Ken Henderson
Review: I have two other books by Ken Henderson: one on JavaScript and one on C++. This is another fine book in the Henderson tradition. It is exceedingly well-written and engaging. Also, it is loaded with examples, as are all of Henderson's books. There's over 600 in this one, which is, I think, the most I've ever seen in one book. And every example is used to illustrate some larger point -- this is not just a boring solutions cookbook. The sections on transactions and cursors are particularly good, as is the OLE automation chapter, and the statistics chapters. Ken Henderson is one of the great tech authors out there, and you won't be sorry you bought this book.
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Summary: Makes a great textbook
Review: We have been looking for over a year for a textbook for our SQL Server DBMS classes. At long last, we finally found one. I'm an assistant prof. here and teach most of the third and fourth year database classes. This book is the first one I've found that I'd consider college-level material. Written in clear, understandable terms, this is the first SQL Server book I've seen that successfully balances the practical with the theoretical. Most technical books go too far to one side or the other, especially non-academic books. Not this one, though. It informs and educates, trains and teaches, all at once. If you want to understand how an industry-leading DBMS like SQL Server *really* works, get this book.
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Summary: Not one wasted page
Review: A lot of books have wasted pages and wasted space. Not this one. It is the most exacting, precise treatment of Transact SQL that I have ever seen. Every chapter is a treasure trove of techniques and advanced coding practices. Every page covers some nuance that most of us would miss. I have bought all the developers on my team a copy of this book. It's that good.
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Summary: Like Celko says, this is the best book available on T-SQL
Review: I keep getting good referals from these authors. My first SQL Server book was Ron Soukup's Inside SQL Server. It was and is a great book. I've learned tons from it. Soukup's book told me that Joe Celko's books were "for the Mensa crowd" and, sure enough, Celko's book turned out to be very valuable. Now I've discovered that Celko recommends Henderson's book on the newsgroups and that he also wrote the book's foreword. Once again, I've struck gold! What a great book. It has a little of Soukup and a lot of Celko in it. There's nary a tough T-SQL problem that you won't find addressed in some form or fashion between its covers. On top of that, it's written extremely well. In fact, I think I like Henderson's style better than just about every other computer book author I've read. He's to the point and thorough - not easy to do. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Great code and lucid explanations
Review: The great thing about this book is that the author goes beyond just delivering a bunch of example code. He actually takes the time to explain how it works. He has a direct, first-person style that is rare these days and that works perfectly. There's just enough commentary, but no filler or fluff. A very tight book that belongs on the shelf of every SQL practitioner in the business.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware: Joe Celko does the forward
Review: I must have missed something the other 130 reviewers found so great about this book. There is a dirth of what I consider to be "good T-SQL guides". Unfortunately, this publication is another in a long line of misses. I didn't find the author's technical explanations of his own examples, brillant though they may be, very indepth or complete, even. There seemed to be an excessive amount of multi-page "code listings", which become difficult to follow after a while. Mr. Henderson seems to be styling his writing after his long-winded friend, Joe Celko. Perhaps the holy grail which I seek, in the name of "T-SQL for T-SQL dummies, but for otherwise database and programming Smarties", shall remain interminably elusive. I also bought Mr. H's Guru's guide to SQL Stored Procs, which on the face of it seems to be more promising. Let us pray.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect computer book
Review: This is the perfect computer book. I think what I like the most is how easily it reads. What a great writer. He makes learning fun. I like the abundance of code to. It's refreshing to read a computer book that's enlightening and a good read at the same time. It makes learning transact-sql so much easier. Thanks for the chapter on Transaction Management. It was worth the price of the book alone (true for most of the chapters in the book - good stuff).
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Summary: T-SQL in the eXtreme!
Review: From page 1 to the very last one, this book is T-SQL in the eXtreme. It teaches the language using the language - a very smart way of doing it. You have no choice but to master the language - you can't get through the book without it! You add to this to author's insistance on writing "the way that people speak" and you have this very practical, hands-on guide that's loaded technically but still very friendly and readable. I wish all database books were written this way. Last but not least, I want to thank the author for tolerating my many questions. I wrote him shortly after I got the book and have been corresponding with him since. He has never failed to answer my questions, regardless of how difficult they were. I know he must get a lot of email, but he took the time for me anyway. A true gentleman.
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