Rating: 
Summary: Oracle to SQL Transition made easy
Review: I just made the transistion from Oracle to SQL
Server about 3 months ago and I took up this book for a
starting point on the power of SQL Server. This book
is a great book for me and anyone making this kind of transition.
Rating:
Summary: Get this to sharpen up your T-SQL skills
Review: I got this book when we upgraded from SQL Server 7.0 to 2000 in order to sharpen up my T-SQL skills. It has been a wonderful book. I have learned more about T-SQL from this book than I ever knew before.I think I finally have a good understanding of how transactions work and all their little details. The book explains them in terms any reader could understand. The discussion of full text services was also very good. We have been thinking of using this technology but did not know much about it. This book helped fill that gap and we will probably be giving it a try soon. I would be remiss if I left out the secret features chapter. That was a joy to read through. I had seen some of these things as I have managed my servers but did not know what they were. Now I have a much better idea of what is going on with the systems I manage.
Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for every Sql Server professional
Review: This book should be required reading for every Sql Server professional. It teaches how to do things that are simply impossible on other RDBMS platforms. The power of Transact-SQL is wielded in this book like a true master. When you have a tough T-Sql problem to solve, this book should be your first stop. It is for me.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for anyone using Sql Server
Review: I have over ten years of experience in the database profession. Henderson's books are the best I have seen for any dbms. I bought all three of them around Christmas time and have been poring over them since then. This book taught me how to write industrial strength programs for Sql Server. Who would have thought that the query language had this much power? The chapters on set operations, hiearchys and arrays showed me dozens of different ways of solving problems that I would have previously thought were unsolvable without pulling the data back to the client and working with it there. Being able to do all these things on the server makes applications simpler and faster. The money I paid for this and Henderson's other books is the best money I have spent on computer books in a long, long time. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Best of it's kind
Review: There are so many secrets in this book that I felt like I was learning the language for the first time. The examples are abundent and the explanations are extremely clear. The chapter of undocumented TRANSACT-Sql alone was worth my time to read the whole book. The one on arrays opened my eyes to new ways of solving tough problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Outdated and for earlier versions
Review: This is old version 7.0 material. It's all command line driven ideas and magazine level tricks for using a query language like a real programming language, only it doesn't fly in production. This book is for novices only. Any enterprise programmer would want to steer clear of this inaptly named book. I give it two stars for the sharpening of t-sql query writing.
One can get caught up in real programming many times and miss the forest for the trees. This book does at least show times a query might work as well as real code.
2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Query performance chapter is worth the price alone
Review: The query performance chapter in this book is worth the price of the whole book. I have never seen such a collection of useful, practical Sql Server info and advise in one place. If you build or manage Sql Server for a living you owe it to yourself to read and practise this excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read for all SQL Svr DBA's and programmers
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone who is a DBA or programmer for SQL Svr applications. It is far and away the best book on the subject. The first thing I will point out is the lack of screen prints. Unlike most other computing books this book has almost no screen prints. Only one chapter has any at all, and that his the query performance chapter where screen prints of query execution plans are shown. The book is tight and lacks the filler and fluff in almost every other SQL Svr book. The next thing is the style of writing. The author says he tries to write the way that people speak. That is exactly how the book reads: very plain spoken and easy to understand. The next great thing about the book is the range of topics covered. I didn't expect to find anything about full-text search or transaction management in a book like this, but they are there. I didn't expect any discussion of Automaton, but there is a chapter on it. In addition to what one would expect in a book like this, many other related topics are discussed in detail as well. The query performance chapter could be sold by itself - its that good. I learned more from it than I have from whole books about query performance. The indexing internals were particularly useful, especially the part about covered indexes and index intersections and joins. The chapter on cursors was also a godsend. I used it to convince some colleagues to redesign their part of an application we are working on. Like most of the book, no one has said it better.
Rating:
Summary: Teaches all the secrets
Review: Lots of books will give you TSQL syntax. Very few will teach you the insides of the language, the secrets that only the masters know. This book teaches you those secrets. It will take you from being a novice to being an expert. Its hard to pick a favorite chapter from among so many good ones. Here are my favorites: 1. SELECT chapter - this is a tour de force of all that can be done with the SELECT command. I went in thinking it would be lame. I came out being amazed at the power of this simple command. 2. Statistical commands - this is a collection of powerful queries that show how to compute numerous types of statistical figures from Sql Server databases. 3. Arrays - this chapter is a life-saver if you need array-like functionality from TSQL. 4. Administrative TSQL - this chapter has several scripts that professional DBA's would kill for. Worth the price of the book alone.
Rating:
Summary: The best books available on SQL SERVER
Review: The Guru Guide books are the best books available for SQL SERVER. I have all three and never ceased to be impressed with how much I learn each time I read one of them. Each book requires and rewards careful rereading. There is always more there than you glean the first time. I am still reading the first one nearly four years after I originally bought it. I never cease to find some new nuggest when I research a solution to my latest SQL SERVER challenge. I also like the non-technical writing in each book. The personal anecdotes, the essays, the quotes at the head of each chapter: they all give you the impression that you are being taught by, as Ron Soukup says, a veteran developer who knows what he is talking about because he has lived it.
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