Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: This book changed the way I look at Sql Server development. Like most shops I think, we used to be very loose with our the way we approached writing stored procs and T-Sql code. Our idea of version control for our stored proc code was keeping database backups. Our idea of design was whatever the rest of the app required of a proc we would make it do, one way or the other. Our idea of unit testing was running a proc or two in Query Analyzer while were trying to get it to run.I think the reason for that is that we didn't really think of T-sql as "real" source code. We thought of it as some type of database object-code hybrid, and as such didn't give it full official code "status". That was a mistake as this book so brilliantly points out. To write T-Sql and stored procs effectively and optimally you have to approach it the same way you would C or VB. That one lesson has totally changed the way my group develops T-Sql code. I also liked the chapter on extended procs and the one on OLE Automation. I had wondered how to do both of these things before, but now I know. And xp_setpriority -- what a beauty. We put that one to work right away in one of our systems.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I have all three Guru books. This is the best of the three for the pure developer. It is so code centric it is difficult to keep up with at times - it requires and rewards doing your homework. With literally hundreds of code examples to work through, you simply have no choice if you want to get the most out of the book. The best part of the book IMHO is the SqlXml section. It makes up a good chunk of the book and features hundreds of examples to work through. These take time to go through but they are worth it. You don't need to know Xml in advance - you can literally start from scratch here - but you have to do your homework - you have to work through the examples. Finishing them all took me about a month but when I did I knew Xml inside out and knew how to use it effectively in Sql Server. The other thing I like about this book is the professional approach it takes to programming. Unlike a lot of books that treat stored proc development like something you can by the seat of the pants and not really engineer, this book stresses the engineering side of Sql development. It's about time somebody did that. Things like testing, coding conventions, design, idioms, patterns matter to Sql developers, too, whether they know it or not.
Rating: 
Summary: Short on useful examples and usage very outdated
Review: Some talk of the "new" sqlxml in the gg series of books. I've seen very large laments on the gg series of books and claims of managing extremely large implementations, yet this team finds xml new. It was being used by large companies as far back as 4 years. Four year old techology is just now being proclaimed as the next new thing. That is the common thing with this series. It's behind the times of the real professionals inthe United States of America who have been using sqlxml since 2000 in a very serious way. Most developers have moved far beyond this now with web based services and sqlxml implementations that of a new breed altogether. It's what all major forces in IT today are doing. Again, it's plain from the examples and statements this series and it's followers are on a much more conservative track. If you are serious about technology, this series is just, plain and simple, way too conservative for you. The XML chapters are so light on the technology it is actually behind the material we were using 4 years ago. There are absolutely ESSENTIAL technologies within SQLXML that are not even mentioned in the latest book. No serious developer can go anywhere beyond a few table transformations with this series. That is it. SQLXML goes so far beyond that and it's apparent the writer adn readers are unaware of it at this time. As a rule all of the books in this series are seriously behind the cutting edge by at least 4 to 5 years. There is no debate about this, simply look at the topics in these books and compare it to books much older and you will find the same material, only typically in much more detail with excellent graphics and examples that use actual sales or other business type examples. Not a four or five table example with Ken's hot sauce as the complete XML chapter's examples.
There are professional SQL server guides that were put out in 2000 that cover SQLXML far and away better than the most current book in this series.
Way too conservative and outdated in all editions.
Rating:
Summary: too much repeated material
Review: book one was included in this book word for word, examples are even repeated in their book one form. Very disappointed there was no udating since the title was changed and not a volume 2 book as it should be.
Very generic on XML. The amount of this book that touches on XML goes no further than a few raw xml output examples that have no business usage, and are so generic they teach little if anything. You can find the level of XML coverage, with full working examples that you can use immediately just using bol or msdn or technet as others have mentioned. I was very surprised anyone said all of XML is in this book. that is, excuse my saying so, but just not even close to the truth. Anyone that is working with today's technology would certainly know that is misleading. Everything about this series is misleading. The 50 votes per review in 10 minutes time, maybe the marketing king at sourceforge knows a bit about that.
All other material in this book is amateurish in substance.
Not a good purchase
Rating:
Summary: The best coverage of stored procs, XML, and HTML you can buy
Review: I absolutely loved this book. It treates stored proc development like real development...you know like you might approach other languages. I'll single out the design patterns chapter as my favorite. I would never have thought of applying design patterns to stored procs. Now it all makes sense to me. The XML info in this book is simply excellent. It covers all the major components of Sql Server's XML facility and teaches how to use it in real-world, production-type solutions. I especially liked sp_run_xml_proc -- a great piece of code that works around a glaring flaw in Sql Server's XML facility by allowing you to insert the results of a FOR XML query into a table or variable. This book is a must-have for serious Sql Server developers. If your a hobbiest or wanna-be, this book isn't for you.
Rating:
Summary: Very weak on XML and stored procs
Review: This book is not complete on any subject it attempts to tackle. No details or useful examples.
I have 200 programmers working for me and none of them have found this or any of this series worthwhile beyond the very most beginner. Even then they said there is no decent examples not any graphics of any kind which devleopers prefer to be used sparingly to keep on target and give meaning to professional level examples which this book does not have.
In summary it's very weak on XML and stored procs. The XML is too generic that is outdated and the stored procs are not shown how they are used to perform what a pro developer needs them to do. The examples of using them to print a few lines of meaningless text is not what pros are looking for, it's meaningful examples and techniques for stored procs to hook up with today's technologies.
This book is very very weak in all these regards.
Rating:
Summary: Best SQLXML book, great series altogether
Review: First, a little about me:
I am the VP of development for a large communications firm. We build communciations software based on Sql Server and have customers around the world. Our largest customer is a multi-terabyte implentation with thousands of servers. We serve about 20,000 customers worldwide. Now about the books: The guru's guide series of books has everything you need to learn to use Sql Server at an enterprise level. Most books are task-oriented -- that is, they teach you how to do one thing or another. The gg books are different: they teach you how things actually work. As Mr. Campbell, the product manager for Sql Server, says in the forward, Henderson is an author is obviously not satisfied with surface explanations or shallow understanding. These books reek of deep knowledge and insight. They are all you need to use Sql Server productively in the enterprise. I will now talk about the things I liked about each book. The Guru's Guide to Transact-Sql is simply the best book on the planet for mastering Transact-Sql. Since Transact-Sql is the language by which applications communicate with Sql Server, this is essential. This book is a fresh look at a language that has been around since the early 90's. It shows all the new features as well as numerous old tricks. It shows how to get more value from the language and use it to do things that most Transact-Sql coders simply don't know about. There is one novel technique after another in this book, one solution to hard problems facing enterprise applications after another. This book should be the cornerstone to any shop developing software for Sql Server. The second book in the series is the Guru's Guide to Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML. This book does two things: it picks up where the first book leaves off and takes the discussion of getting the most out of Transact-Sql a step further. It also introduces you to SQLXML, Sql Server 2000's new XML-based feature set. There are several chapters on SQLXML alone and they even include a basic XML primer which the developers working for me absolutely loved. The book is actually even better than the first guru's guide which surprised most of my developers and architects. I would say it is our favorite development book for Sql Server thanks to topics like design patterns, testing, refactoring, coding conventions, and source code management that no other Sql Server development book talks about but that this book dedicates whole chapters to. This book is professional Sql Server development for the masses. It elevates Transact-Sql and SQLXML develoment from a haven for hackers to a professional engineering discipline, something the programming manager who works for me swears by. The Guru's Guide to Sql Server Internals and Architecture is the last book in the series. I personally believe it is the best of the series, but others on my team still favor the second book. It picks up where the first two books leave off and updates what they had to say on certain topics. For example, it updates the SQLXML coverage in the second book and covers all the new SQLXML features that have appeared in the Web releases since the second book was written. It updates the coverage of distributed partitioned views in the earlier books to reflect bug fixes in that technology. It also updates topics discussed in the previous books by going more into their architectural and design details. For example, it updates the discussion of Full Text Services from the first book by talking about how the technology is designed and why it is so. This a must read for any one working with the technology, especially large enterprises that depend on it. The other thing I like about the new book is how it covers so much of the product. Inside Sql Server 2000 covers what turns out to be a pretty narrow slice of the Sql Server. This book covers all that that book does and then some. For example, there are great chapters on Notification Services, DTS, replication, server federations, FTS, ODSOLE, and many others. Each one is packed with useful info for people creating enterprise-class software on the Sql Server platform. Each one is a must read for anyone working with the respective technology. A common feature of all the book is how pragmatic they are, how practically useful the techniques they teach and the code they provide is. There are literally hundreds of sample code files included on the CD with each of the books. I counted over 1000 on the last book alone. Much of this code can be used in production without modification. Unlike a lot of book code, this code doesn't just teach, it is also very practically useful. The best feature of all for these three book is how well written they are. Henderson mentions that he not one for longwindedness or artiface in his writing, and my team has found these books very plainspoken and very readable. What you get here is great writing from a master teacher who obviously knows Sql Server inside-out. One last thought: this series of books is a must read for enterprise-class customers because it stresses one thing over and over: you must really understand a technology inside-out and comprehensively to use it optimally. The importance of this truth only increases with the size and complexity of the technology and the implementation. If you rely on Sql Server for you enterprise as we do, you should buy a copy of each book in this series for everyone who touches Sql Server.
Rating:
Summary: Not useful for SQLXML
Review: The XML coverage in this book is not useful for anyone interested in doing full blown XML development. XPATH routines and the amount of time spent on transforming and xquery are not sufficient to get beyond a beginner's stage. There are many beginners writing simple tabular represenations of a table in xml, you may be able to pull that off with this material. But any true development with browser based user input and interactive sqlxml programming simply does not exist in this book. I wish my job only required me to know what is in this book!!! I run a large healthcare IT and we are far far beyond this outdated material. In fact this book is behind the w3c standards and will not even work as shown for what little there is here. My 15 world class programmers have told me this is the last book and series they would turn to for anything. There is no reference material for any arguments or things you don't want to have to open yet another browser session for, when my guys are running 10 to 15 screens doing development. Any good book will spend the pages this one does on the "essays" of no value listing the indispensible tables of values any programmer needs at his fingertips.
Very weak on XML and SQL in general.
Rating:
Summary: Sql-xml for professionals
Review: This book explains sql-xml in a way and using examples that any Sql Dba should be able to follow. I found the writing cogent and extremely detailed - something it has been my experience that is rare in this type of book. One real prize in the book is the xml intro chapter. It is a better read than a couple of separate books I have on the subject. It covers the language better (yet more concisely) than anything else I have seen and provides a good foundation for the sql-xml chapters that follow. I don't think any one book can totally cover such a big subject as sql-xml so I recommend Malcome's book to go with this one. Between the two you will get all you need to know about sql-xml to build production systems or improve ones you have already built.
Rating:
Summary: Should be titled SQLXML Bible
Review: I would say this is a must read for anyone really interested in learning SQLXML inside out. The book provides hundreds of pages and hundreds of code samples to show how to wield SQLXML like a true pro. The best part is relationships shown between SQLXML and the rest of Sql Server. For example there is much discussion of how various SQLXML pieces perform in the real world and how they stack up against each other. The discussion on SQLXML templates and how they achieve great performance through Remote Procedure Calls was extremely educational for me. So was the discussion of how to get XML data into the server in the first place and how the various methods of doing it compare with each other in terms of performance and otherwise. The book teaches SQLXML in the context of Sql Server as a whole, something not many other books even attempt. This book is my company's SQLXML Bible and it should be yours to.
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