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Summary: The consummate guide to the language
Review: This book is the consummate guide to the language. If you want a book that not only provides answers to tough problems but that also tells you WHY they work and what the BEST answers to problems are, look no further.
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Summary: Worth every penny
Review: I have purchased every major Sql Server book over the last seven years. I have them all. I have read about Sql Server voraciously since getting out of school, and there can be only one word to describe Henderson's Guru's Guide books: indespensible. They are head and shoulders above all of the other books out there.The reasons for this are many. I will list but a few: - Extremely well-written. Henderson has a penchant for explaining subjects in ways that no one else seems to be able to. Passages sometimes require more than one read because they are so deep, but the time is always well spent. - Loaded, absolutely loaded, with code. If you manage Sql Server machines for a living you will find that you can drop much of the code into place on your production machines without modificaton. Sp_find_root_blocker, sp_diffdb, sp_generate_script... these are all wonderful pieces of code that make the books worth the price for the code alone. - Extremely deep. One subject after another is covered in excruciating detail. Henderson's books are deeper and more extensive than any other class of technical books I have read. - Wide-ranging. Henderson doesn't stick to just a narrow part of the product, but covers subjects that real DBA's and developers would need: Full-text search, DTS, replication, query performance optimation, XML, etc. If you get and read all three of the Guru's Guide books, you will have as good of coverage of the entire product as exists. There are few authors who are as passionate about great technical writing as we DBA's and developers are about building and maintaining software systems. Ken Henderson is obviously one of them.
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Summary: Absolutely wonderful
Review: The number of topics covered in this book is impressive, especially when you consider the detailed way in which their explored. The author writes in a style that is plain spoken but extremely detailed. There are no corners cut in this book. If a subject is related at all to Transact SQL, it is taught expertly and exhaustively. The techniques shown are those of a programming master. One after the other reveals things about the language I had no idea you could do. For example, I didn't know you could do this: SELECT @authors=@authors+','+au_lname from pubs.dbo.authors but now I do! Page after page is filled with novel techniques, insights, and downright secrets and hidden features that you won't find in any other book. I was able to take three of the queries in the statistics chapter and drop them into existing applications at my job and both greatly simplify and greatly speed up our code. The writing is great. The code is great. The book is all I could have hoped for. Highly recommended.
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Summary: My survival guide
Review: I have a lot of different Sql Server and database books. Most of them end up being shelved and not used much. I read them through and glean the useful info from them and never return to them. Not so with this book. It has real staying power. I wish I had a dollar for every hard problem this book has helped me solve. Sophisticated Sql Server applications will necessarily involve sophisticated T-Sql. This book teaches how to approach the language holistically and learn a new way of coding in it. I don't know what the term would be: the guru way? Whatever it is, it's a whole new way of coding in T-Sql, an industrial strength, engineering-based methodology that teaches how to wield the language like a Sammari sword.
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Summary: The definitive book on T-sql
Review: This is the definitive work on T-sql. If you encounter tough problems in T-sql (and you will if you build systems based on it of any complexity) this book will get you through them. The two things I like best are the teaching technique and the undocumented things. Henderson tells it like it is, and his writing is smoother and easier to read than anyone I've ever read.
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Summary: Fantastic book
Review: An equally appropriate title for this book would be Thinking in Transact-SQL. It reminds me much of Bruck Eckle's Thinking in... programming books. It is about solving the tough problems you often encounter in T-SQL development. The sample code statistics for the book are mind boggling: over 600 code sample files in about that many pages. This is a very code-centric book. The way it typically works is the author presents a common problem people run into in T-SQL, then shows multiple solutions to it, comparing and contrasting each one. Expert teaching doesn't get any better than this. There are over 100 undocumented procedures revealed. That alone is worth the cost of the book. Many of these are quite handy and I'm glad to finally know about them. Joe Celko says in the forward that this is the best T-SQL book, bar none. He is absolutely right. If you work with SQL Server, you owe it to yourself to learn the secrets this book teaches inside-out.
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Summary: None better
Review: I learned more about the Transact-SQL language from reading this book than I had from all the other books I had read on the subject combined. The book is basically a cook book of solutions to tough Transact-SQL problems. The best parts are the statistical and positional queries. Want to know how to return the stocks that have risen on three consequtive days? This book will show you. Want to know how to identify runs and regions and sets? Look no further. Need arrays? The book shows you how. Working with hierarchies? Its got that too. The best thing about the book is that it doesn't treat you like an idiot. It assumes you have some basic SQL skills and builds on them. If you are a complete beginner this is not your book. But if you have some basic skills this book will teach you how to do things with T-SQL you never thought possible.
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Summary: Great coverage of Transact-SQL
Review: Oops... the comments below were for another book by Ken Henderson: The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML and HTML. However I also have the Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL and I use it daily to get around SQL. Another excellent book! Finally a book that gives you, in the same chapter, a way to do arrays in SQL, and an excellent example of how to use extended stored procedures, and system functions. When I search for a good book, I look at a lot of books on the shelves, and often notice that many books just duplicate information readily available at "Books on line" or MSDN. This one doesn't do that. It explores a lot of topics that, although they do not appear immediatly useful, sooner or later will save you a lot of time. And that's what I look for when I buy a book! This extra wealth of information that makes a difference when you have to program something of higher complexity that usual.
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Summary: Wish I'd had these books 5 years ago
Review: I own all three of Ken Henderson's SQL Server books. They stand apart from the rest of the crowd as the best books available on their respective subjects. Henderson takes a fresh approach to teaching that other authors would do well to emulate. What do I mean exactly? I mean this: Every point of any significance that is raised is illustrated with code when possible. There are hundreds of code examples in each of Henderson's books - many times what you usually see in DBA or programming books. No details are glosssed over. If you really want to know how something works or what the best approach is to doing something, you need these books. Another thing that is great about these books is how easy to read they are. Complex subjects are regularly broached with explanations and teaching that practically anyone could understand. Topics that trip up other authors or that they skip altogether are discussed in terms that anyone can grasp. It is difficult to convey just how important this is, but suffice it to say that the books are simply easy to read. If you want to know SQL Server at an expert level, you need look no further. Get all three of Henderson's books and read them cover-to-cover.
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Summary: Excellent
Review: I believe the one word "excellent" describes this book. I have read this book from cover to cover, and I can not believe the reviewer who gave this book 1 star. I have been in i.t. profesionally for more than 10 years, and prior to that as a hobbyist for another 10 years. This is one of the best books I've ever read over the past 20 years. Although I have had formal training in SQL, my everyday working enviroment uses a different database language. This book helped remind me of things I once knew, and taught me many many new things. Get this book if you wish to sharpen up on your skills, I did, and it was worth every penny.
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