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Summary: Refreshing in a world of Half-Made books
Review: Foreword: These days, half of all the books you see on the bookstore shelf are nothing more than bound arrangements of paper, aka waste of energy.I have been developing software and databases for many years and this book is an excellent resource for learning and gaining expertise in SQL7. It is clear, concise, and gives you plenty of examples and code. It also covers the gamut of what's what in SQL. Definitely a recommendation for developing in SQL, and if you're looking to administer SQL7 databases look into the book..."Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Administrator's Companion."
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Summary: Good. Darned good. But is this IT?
Review: I don't get it. Every book I pick up on SQL 7 is filled with words, lotsa pages (and this one is even quite useful), and yet something is missing. What's missing is what I can never get enough of: practical examples. Hey, if I knew SQL really well, maybe I wouldn't mind, but I'm often having trouble with things like fancy JOINs, how to send back error strings, and which @@global variables can't be passed as output parameters in stored procedures. There's a lot I don't know real gud. But I gotta get the coding done. So I keep looking for one of these goldmines that doesn't try to explain what a database is, but gives me lots of examples, and a great index, so I can stumble into instances of things done right and wrong, and try to find some help with my many specific problems. This is a wonderful book to read if you have the time, it does give you a better insight into SQL7, it's well written. But if you're like me, we're still looking for that book that we can keep on our desks, next to the aspirin.
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Summary: Great Reference Material
Review: I have not read this book cover to cover, nor could I. This book is a very good reference book (although I wish DTS was covered), but not exciting reading material. If you are a SQL Server programmer,I would definitely recommend you have this book on you shelf.
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Summary: Extremely well written
Review: I purchased three things to help me prepare for the 70-029 exam: This book, the Exam Cram Book, and Transcender. The Exam Cram is garbage, but this book consistently presents the material in an accurate and logical fashion. It fully explains the concepts to the degree that fosters understanding as well as retention. Concept explanations are followed up by numerous examples and it's written in a way that makes a relatively dry subject interesting. It's impossible to go wrong with this book either as a reference or as a study guide.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely well written
Review: I purchased three things to help me prepare for the 70-029 exam: This book, the Exam Cram Book, and Transcender. The Exam Cram is garbage, but this book consistently presents the material in an accurate and logical fashion. It fully explains the concepts to the degree that fosters understanding as well as retention. Concept explanations are followed up by numerous examples and it's written in a way that makes a relatively dry subject interesting. It's impossible to go wrong with this book either as a reference or as a study guide.
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Summary: Great book for a great product
Review: If you already know the basics and are interested in intelligent database design, this is the book for you. It delves into the internal workings of SQL Server and helps you understand how the program actually stores your data and the factors that could affect database performance. (After reading this book, I was able to redesign my some tables to reduce long-running queries by about 90%.) You can also buy the more recent edition on SQL Server 2000 if you are planning to upgrade soon.
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Summary: The next step after the basic guides.
Review: If you are looking for a basic introduction to SQL Server this is not the book for you. However if you are looking for a book that give the next level of understanding over every other SQL Server book out there then this is definitly a book you are looking for. This book goes well beyond the basic create a database, backup a database, modify a table, add a user, with a ton of screen shots formats of the vast number of books now available on SQL Server to explore the more technical details of the product that provide real guidance. In working with DBAs that I have had to bring up to speed on the product, I have found that this book is an excellent "next step" after they come back from DBA training. The authors provide the reader with an understanding of what is going on under the hood of SQL Server. Their explanation of both the use of system tables as well as their content is second to none. The archtectural overview and performance tuning are the best I have found. There is really no other book out there today that drills down on this information to the depth and with the intelegence of the authors. The one gripe I have, and why I am not giving it 5 stars, is that the locking section could be better. There are locking situations I have had occour while using the product that the book does not address.
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Summary: Best Book for SQL 7
Review: If you only have one reference for SQL 7..this is it.
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Summary: Don't expect all the basics, expect the gory inside details
Review: Most books 'are all alike' in that they contain the same old standard stuff, told in a different way. This book does what its title suggest: it gives a more in depth view of what's behind the facade of MS SQL Server. For instance, most people don't even want to know what every bit in a datapage stands for. Personally I think that people are better prepared to work with something if they do know at least some (or preferably: all) of its inner workings. If you're like me in that respect, this book is for you. Based on some practical experience with MS SQL 6.5 and my more theoretical knowledge of relational databases I tried for Microsofts exam number 70-029. I just didn't make it (only needed 30 or so more points). The main reason I made the exam the second time was having read this book; most of the questions I didn't know were more on optimisations and/or more inner workings of MS SQL. Interesting book, but probably not everyone's cup of tea. And if you're looking for information about replication you can forget that, because that's not covered.
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Summary: Very serious SQL book, must have to build solid foundation
Review: This book covers the topics very well in which I do agree and I have quoted the following points from Microsoft's site:- * Evolution, architecture, and toolset: The history of SQL Server since 1989, an architectural overview, and a comprehensive tour of its tools and features * Planning and deployment: Everything you need to know about installation and deployment issues such as multiple instances, Super Sockets, and upgrades * Databases, files, tables, and data: How to create, modify, back up, and restore databases, files, and tables; and how to query and modify data * Built-in development tools: Using Query Analyzer and SQL Server Profiler to simplify system administration and optimize performance; programming with Transact-SQL; and extending functionality with batches, transactions, stored procedures, and triggers * Query-processing techniques: Multiple indexes, hash and merge joins, and data-manipulation capabilities such as parallel queries * Internal architecture: Low-level details of data and index-page structures, cursors, locking mechanisms, optimization, and plan caching If you like to have 90% of your work done and not too worry about the last 10%, this book is for you, even the author have said it himself, his book is not perfect. Simply because it would take him 90% of the time to finish the last 10% of the work and the book will never be published. The author is humble and in my opinion, this is one of the best books I have read and it worths five stars, although it may still contain spelling and syntax errors. If you are a serious SQL developer and have not read this book before, I would wonder about the percentage of you to be more SQL Server junkier than the two authors, who have dedicated and exposed their life to the development of SQL Server. This book is not for the light-hearted. For those who are only interested in finding lots of examples and picked at the last 10% of the material, which was not covered by the book to do your special tasks, this book may not suit you. This book is for the true SQL Server professionals who wish to learn and build on a solid SQL foundation, can think and derive solutions for themselves, to succeed into this field.
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