Rating: 
Summary: Good book. Detailed review below...
Review: This is an excellent beginners book. From installation through to triggers all you need to know to get up and running. Shame it is missing about User Defined Functions but I thought this was a really good book.Chapter 1 - Good coverage of the versions, whats what. Also liked the installation of SQL Server.
Chapter 2 Covered areas such as Enterprise Manager well and like the Configuring section. Found out how to set some very useful propreties
Chapter 3 - Query Analyzer. Went through every item that a beginner should need as well as an intermediate. Helped me figure out and set up as I wanted
Chapter 4 - This chapter for DB design etc is very clear and concise. I liked the Normalization section as well as relationships as to how these work
Chapter 5/6/7 - Enough coverage and good warnings about the system databases and building the sample db. Also loved the defining tables and the different data types and finally all about the different indexes you can have. Very useful. Chapter 8 - This was my favourite chapter as it showed how to build relationships between tables.
Chapter 9 - didnt think this was really necessary
Chapter 10 - Good basics of backups. Not much on network backups.
Chapter 11 - Good basics again of maintenance
Chapter 12 - Images!! Yes!! No-one else I know touches this.
chapter 13-15 - Loved transactions in the Insert chapter. all the others cover good basics of T-SQL
Chapter 16 - Could have done a bit more on indexing a view but apart from that shows how to create a view well. Also how to use it
Chapter 17/18 - Would have liked to see more about nested stored procedures but again good coverage. Dealing with errors was my favourite part
Chapter 19 - XML - The way so much is going. Maybe book needs updating for SQLXML 3.0?
chapter 20 - A bit advanced for beginners but triggers are a great plus. As I say, this is the best beginning SQL Server book I bought (this was my third!) and I loved the authors style and content. Wasnt confused at any point and found all that was being said to be clear. Wish I had bought it first Its downfalls? Well images it does say you need a binary stream to input an image but doesnt show any VB code to pass it in. No UDF's or UDT's and no coverage of SQL XML 3. Dedication was interesting but a bit long....
Excellent coverage on how to complete each action in any method you wish so this does lead to excellent T-SQL coverage. Loved it
Rating:
Summary: Great way to learn enuff to pass MS 70-229!!!
Review: This is an excellent book for learning to install, configure and manage SQL Server. However, the the title is a little misleading. The empasis not programming but admin. The few programming examples included are so intermingled with the admin stuff that they are hard to follow. This book will quickly get you to the point that you can start programming, but you need another book to go beyond that point.
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