Rating: 
Summary: Full of corny observations and useless code
Review: I wouldn't waste my money on this one. The first thing you notice when reading it is that the authors have no talent as writers. The observations are often so corny and amateurish that they're beneath publication. Take for example the observation about people with similar names. The book asks a rhetorical question to the effect: "how many times have given someone special attention because they had the same name as you?" Real insightful guys. Sounds like it was written by a twelve year old.The other problem is the stupid deviations into complex math. I suppose you could write complex math functions in most any language with decimal numbers and UDFs, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate or at all representative of what people in the real world do. I'd like to see one SQL Server app out there that implements complex math in UDFs. It's on the fringe, to say the least, yet these guys drone on page after page about it. On top of that, the code presented is sub-optimal and impractical for real use. Basically, it's an exercise in academia that the reader has to suffer through. Worst of all is the fact that the T-SQL shown in the book is no where near advanced. Other reviews have mentioned this, and I'd like to had my wholehearted agreement. If you've programmed for any length of time in T-SQL, this book will teach you little if anything. Not only is it *not* advanced, it's not written very well and wastes time and paper on fringe topics. Not worth the money at all in my opinion. Definitely one for the discount bin.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth purchasing
Review: I read this book basically cover to cover and recommend it to database and application developers interested in a very readable and informative text detailing most of the new features introduced in SQL Server 2000, specifically User-Defined Functions, Cascading Referential Constraints, Indexed Views, INSTEAD OF triggers, Distributed Partitioned Views, along with the new data types (bigint, table variables, and sql-variant), and the new functions SCOPE_IDENTITY() and IDENT_CURRENT(). The authors don't just discuss the new features, but give concrete and practical code examples illustrating each of these features. Additionally, while the book deals very thoroughly with the SQL Server 2000 features listed above, it also provides code to emulate most of the features in pre-SQL Server 2000 installations. As such, the book is an invaluable reference to those who are not able to currently implement SQL Server 2000, but need the functionality. I was particularly impressed that the book provides an entire chapter dealing with a very efficient and practical method of handling hierarchical relationships in SQL Server. This is a topic that most other books on the market either ignore or just skim over, and IMHO this one chapter is worth the price of the book. The authors also frequently present alternative coding options, and then discuss the performance of each option. SQL Server has a number of options to present the relative performance of various coding techniques, and this book is one of the few that goes the extra mile in presenting how to do the analysis to get the most out of SQL Server. The only criticism I have of the book is that the authors appear a bit too willing to accentuate the positive aspects of each feature. I'd prefer a more in depth discussion of the pros and cons of employing various options. For example, Indexed Views are a wonderful technique for OLAP applications, but can have severe negative performance consequences in OLTP applications. While the authors mention this, I felt that a more thorough discussion of when to use and when not to use Indexed Views was warranted. However, this is essentially a minor criticism, and overall the book, IMHO, achieves its goal of presenting coding topics and techniques for the T-SQL programmer wishing to gain a better understanding of how to utilize T-SQL to its fullest.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots and lots of errors
Review: If you like code that won't run out of the box, get this book. Many of the examples simply don't run. These are usually minor errors, but I don't think the book should have gotten into print with them. I spend a lot of time helping people solve T-SQL-related problems. When I was recommending this book (I've stopped doing that) about half the people who got it ran into these code bugs. The authors would do the world a big favor to correct these in a subsequent release of the book. For now, I advise people to stay away from this book. If you want the best T-SQL book out there, get Henderson's Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written
Review: I bought this book one month ago. Finally, I have some time to sit down and read this book. After read a couple of charpters, I realized that I made a big mistake even spend time on this one. This book comes with a sounding title with unreadable material... If peopel do want to explore advanced T-SQL programming, take the "The Guru Guide to Transact-SQL" by Ken Handerson. It is one of the best SQL books in my collection. It is a bit out dated but it will bring you right into the point. Jim J. Zhong
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad book, just not very advanced
Review: It's not that this book is very bad, it's just that it doesn't live up to its title. Frankly, I think the real problem here is that Henderson's Guru's Guide book has redefined the word "advanced." His book is _advanced_ - really advanced. So much so that, if you're a complete beginner, you may struggle with it. From that standpoint, this book pales in comparison and is not really advanced. Now, that doesn't mean it's a bad book, it's just that it's not as advanced as people have come to expect - not a good thing when you call yourself "advanced."
Rating: 
Summary: Advancement Is A State Of Mind
Review: "Advanced"? What defines this? If you thought that this book's title ment "For the user that's already advanced and it will make you more advanced" then you were wrong. This *is* the general meaning of the title though. The intention was "For the user that that's intermediate whom would like to be advanced". There are not too many techniques in here and there are a few items that I needed to talk to the authors about. They were both very nice and had good intentions on writing this book. aPress needs to publish another "Advanced" book on this topic that would discuss some advanced techniques like table about Horizontal Paritioned Views some more, extended stored procedures, using the sp_OAxxx methods, reading and writing to the registry from inside T-SQL, bulk inserts, using the FOR XML and some XSLT. Itzik and Tom did a good job ... but the title is all wrong. It should be called "Get You To The Next Level: T-SQL" and mention on the cover that it's designed for the intermediate level. And anyone who says to just read BOL (books on line) ... you're just trying to intimidate others by stating that it's so easy for you that the standard docs are all you need. Don't be a bully. This is a fine book with the wrong title.
Rating:
Summary: Intermediate TSQL maybe?
Review: If you've read Rob Viera's book, Professional SQL 7/2000 Programming, then your ready for this one. This book reads like a FAQ for common problems and solutions posted to the various listserves and newsgroups for SQL Server. No, this book is not as advanced as many people (myself included) would have liked. Yes, there are a few parts that are poorly written. The honest truth is that this is not the book I had hoped it would be, but the TSQL community has needed a book like this for a while - not the bare basics, but not too advanced. It's certainly better than the one and two star ratings its been given by other readers. When your finished with this one, check out Henderson's Guru's Guide to TSQL.
Rating: 
Summary: I enjoy the book !
Review: I am glad I got this book that I can learn so much from it. This book offers practical solutions with complete explanations. It has full of helpful examples of SQL scripts to explore to gain ideas on what to do and what not to do. I really like it.
Rating:
Summary: Worst investment I've made in awhile
Review: I'm still trying to figure out what is "advanced" about this book. The writing is poor -- very poor, in fact. It's loaded with run-on sentences, bad grammar, and copious typos (I counted one on every page for no less than 12 pages!) Many of the examples don't work, and the ones that do are too simple to be useful. The coverage of SQL Server 2000 is sporadic and incomplete. My problem is that I can't come up with any redeeming qualities for the book. I feel like I really wasted my money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Certainly not that bad...
Review: Folks really trashed this book, and I just don't see it. Sure there are a few typos, and yes, much is not really "Advanced" but there is enough in there to make it a very worthwhile read. In addition, it would be nice to have a section that specifically covers SQL 7/2000 issues, but they are in there if you keep looking.
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