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Summary: Opened my eyes to the power in SQL Server
Review: The book showed me the real power in SQL Server. Coming from Oracle for the last 5 years, I thought of SQL Server as a toy. No more. If nothing else, this book convinced me that SQL Server is now ready to play with the big boys.As far as the book itself goes - it's loaded with valuable info. The cursors chapter, the stored procedure chapter, the triggers chapter, the views chapter, the concurency chapter - have all proved invaluable to me. In fact, there isn't much not to like about this book. The other thing I like is the fact that someone has finally documented all those undocumented features. Since I came over to SQL Server, I kept running into them, not knowing which ones I should use, or how safe they might be. Now I know. Henderson's Undocumented T-SQL chapter lays it all out. The secrets are finally revealed, along with a good dose of advice on when to use undocumented stuff and when not to. All in all, this is the best SQL Server book on the market, bar none.
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Summary: A book like no other that I've read
Review: What I like about this book is its originality. In a world where hordes of shoddy books compete for limited shelf space with flashy covers, copious screen prints, and coverage of beta products, this book stands head and shoulders above the rest. It has literally raised the bar for all technical books. Why do I say this? I say it because of the extreme density of the material. I say it because the prose is among the best I've ever come across in a technical book. I say it because of the wry humor and insight offered throughout. I say it because of the technical depth that picks up where the BOL leaves off and goes into things that only an expert would even know let alone be able to write about it. This book changed my life. Get it, read it, and refer to it often - you won't be sorry.
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Summary: You couldn't find a better book to spend your money on
Review: I bought this because of all the good reviews and I have to say: I'm not disappointed. This book has changed the way I write Transact-SQL. It has also educated me about SQL Server. Who knew you could do all that stuff with Transact-SQL? Medians? Sliding aggregates? Regions? Runs? Sequences? Trees? Each time I come across a new trick in this book, I think: "What will this guy come up with next?!" The book is jampacked with advanced techniques and code that I've not seen anywhere else. You couldn't find a better book to spend your money on. If you want the one book that can teach you to code the way the gurus do, get this one.
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Summary: My favorite SQL book
Review: I wish I could give this book 10 stars because I would. It is by far the best SQL Server book I have seen. I have something like two dozen SQL Server books - Inside SQL Server, Transact-SQL Programming, many others - and this is the most useful I have found.
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Summary: The best there is
Review: In the Foreword, no less than SQL master Joe Celko says this book is the best one out there. He's right. This is a wonderful book. I've read it through three times now. It's quite possibly the best SQL Server book money can buy. It's friendly but deep. You won't find a deeper SQL book. It's thorough but readable. It tells you what you need to know and more without putting you to sleep. I learned more browsing through this book in the bookstore than I have from many of the other SQL books I've read. Highly recommended.
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Summary: The programming book I have ever read
Review: Not only is this the best Transact SQL book around, it is also the best programming book of any kind that I have ever read. It doesn't waste your time with stuff you can find elsewhere. It gives you the things only a guru would know. My favorite parts are: 1. Cursors chapter - worth the price alone 2. Undocumented chapter - lots of hidden power 3. Statistics chapter - already using some of these examples in my work 4. Performance chapter - also worth the price by itself I have all the other Transact SQL books and none of them compare. This is the best programming book around.
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Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: This book is not as good as billed in the other reviews here. It's more of a lesson plan than a reference book. Time and time again I find the information I'm looking for to be missing from this book, instead I turn to the O'Reilly book owned by a colleague entitled "Transact SQL Programming"---"Don't waste your money here" is what I have to say. I'm shipping mine back and buying the O'Reilly book.
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Summary: Best SQL book available today.
Review: Wonderful book for advanced SQL developers. Skips the basic stuff you can read in BOL and gets down to exactly what advanced developers can't find anywhere else. This book gave me new approaches and ideas for programming with TSQL that I haven't found anywhere else.
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Summary: Excellent book for SQL Gurus
Review: This is one of the best SQL books that I have ever found! The examples are amazing. I was able to steal..uh, adapt some of his code to utilize it within my production system. This book is a must have for real SQL developers.
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Summary: Value beyond the merely technical
Review: What distinguishes this book from other computer books is that it has value beyond the technical info it imparts. If you took all the technical info out (most of the book, no doubt), you'd still have very finely crafted prose - something that you'd enjoy reading for its own sake. The epigraphs that start each chapter are edgy and thought-provoking. The asides sprinkled throughout the book wherein the author delves into his own background to explain a concept or defend a position are interesting in and of themselves. The text is written quite well, and provides insight into what it takes to write world-class code in the first place, regardless of whether it's in Transact-SQL or some other language. And one more thing: the author has been extremely gracious with me personally. I wrote the email address included in the book with some essoteric questions that I didn't really expect to even garner a response. I was pleasantly surprised when I received a reply a few days later. Since then, I've quizzed him over several other little difficulties I've stumbled upon in my work. Each and every time, he writes back - often with very novel and clever solutions to my little problems. He's the most gracious author I've ever "met", and his book belongs in your library if you do anything with SQL Server's Transact-SQL.
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