Professional SQL Server 2000 XML

Rating:
Summary: All that glitters is not Rob Vieira
Review: I had mistakenly thought that Wrox books were held to a higher standard. First getting a taste for them going through both of Rob Vieira's two SQL Server Programming books and regarding them as the finest technical books I've ever seen. However this Professional SQL Server 2000 XML is a disappointment. Part of the problem lies with having 12 different authors because it seems a bit jumpy. I think I'll really try to limit my future purchases to single source efforts. Also, no care was taken with the code examples that you can download from the Wrox website. The book shows the source but there is really no way of really matching the example to the source other than guessing the name. Often I've needed to open up all 15 or so files in the directory to realize that the particular example is not included. I'm picking my way through but it is not pleasant.

Rating:
Summary: No other book covers SQL XML features like this one does
Review: I looked at two other SQL Server 2000 XML books, but found this one to be the best - covering almost everything on SQL Server 2000 XML. Very well written, nice examples help understand the technology better. The chapter on Updategrams is very useful. I wanted to learn updategrams and this chapter covers it nicely to get started using them in production.

Rating:
Summary: Not that good for .Net developers
Review: It is a good book as far as explaning what SQL Server has to offer regarding XML capabilities but it should have covered the case studies fully with the .Net Framework. Also, it covers very good the IIS configuration, and how to manage XML Templates, XPath and Schemas. The book has a migration example from ASP to ASP.Net which does not cover ADO.Net. If you want a rich source on how to integrate SQLXML and the .Net Framework THIS IS NOT THE BOOK.

Rating:
Summary: Nice book, lots of code
Review: Wrox has always prided themselves on code intensive books, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, they are also getting a bit intensive in the area of adding authors to be the first one to market. This leads to a book that seems a bit disjointed. With as few chapters as this book has, I do not see the need for so many authors. I guess it is the length.

Pluses in this book include the chapter on FOR XML and the chapter on OPENXML. I believe this is the area where most developers will like to spend the most of their time. I would have liked to see FOR XML EXPLICIT get a bit more coverage, as this is the bear, but the examples are workable, so I cannot complain too much.

I also enjoyed the updategram chapter. This ability was highly touted in Microsoft marketing events, but took quite some time to surface. The case studies help put the technology in a real world light.

The negatives are few. First, I believe far too much time is spent on XSD schemas, at least with the way it is presented. In a real world scenario, you are probably going to pull the schema from an existing database, which makes this material NULL and void. If you do get into writing XSD, you will find this material far too shallow.

I also would have liked to see how this technology could blend with the direction Microsoft is pushing .NET. I realize this is not the topic of the book, so I have not hammered on this. Perhaps the next book will be SQL Server 2000 and .NET?