Customer Reviews

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Bible

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3 star:		(1)
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I was introduced to this huge informative book by one of my friends at work place. This is a great reference book for almost everyone starting from beginners to advanced database programmers/admins. It is very difficult to cover all aspects of SQL Server in a single book. Howver, the authr(s) have done a good job in covering almost all the features of SQL Servers. This book helps developers who want to know one and everything in SQL Server. However, certain chapers such as "Service Broker" could have been detailed out more considering that these are more advanced. I especially liked the Partitioning, LINQ, Change Data Capture. It has touched upon the Business intelligence and it could have been done better. However, as I said it is already a huge book and adding more materials would have been even more. Rather this solves the purpose to a great deal as a reference book for almost all domains DBAs and developers to jump start in SQL Server.

SQL Server 2008 Bible is an absolute must for anyone wishing to enhance their SQL Server skills. There is information in there for everyone from a Developer being able to write more optimal queries to the Database Administrator who has much more complicated tasks to accomplish. This book took my knowledge from a very basic level as a developer to a level where I became a database answer point for many on my development team. I strongly recommend this book to anyone that wishes to enhance their SQL Server knowledge. This book is also one of the few that I always have within easy reach when working on development tasks.

I have the two previous editions (2000 and 2005).
This one is heavier than the other two - 1642 pages compared to 1293 and 890.
And the paper stock is better as well.
The tone is almost conversational in that Paul Nielsen comes up with likely scenarios to show the syntax of a command.
You can tell that a lot of his tips come from hindsight. Here's an example of a Best Practice tip found on page 263: "Use a join to pull data from two data sources that can be filtered or manipulated as a whole after the join. If the data must be manipulated prior to the join, then use a derived table subquery."

That piece of advice comes from someone who has had to tackle problems using both techniques.

And he's not afraid to tell you worst practices either. Page 547: "Any table design that requires sparse columns is a horrible design."
This is especially helpful if you're learning a new feature and want to know if it's worth the effort.

Don't think that this is an A-Z reference manual.
Chapter 53 is Mr. Nielsen's "AutoAudit", which is quite a nifty code generator to add auditing to your tables.

The SQL Server 2008 Bible continues Wiley's tradition of outstandingly helpful software manuals. The only problem is that it does not include an electronic version on disk.

This book it's very complete, Covers almost all features of Sql Server 2008, not in depth, but it gives a nice direction for many features. Essential for beginners and most experienced in older versions do MS SQL Server. Covers all news features with examples.

This book is fantastic for beginners like myself, and has been extremely helpful with manuveuering through the Management Studio. The book is loaded with information and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about SQL Server. Thank you!

This book is an incredible book, really everything that you want to know about Sql Server 2008 except the HAVING phrase. There is one mention of it but no examples. Luckily, I have another book that had some good examples of the HAVING phrase and the differences between it and the WHERE clause. Regardless of that omission, it is still a great book for both developers and admins.

Paul Nielson is one of the few people out there who really understands SQL Server in depth. This book works very well with the author's video course, published by Total Training.

Shipping was fast and the book in mint condition. The book is good assuming you have some decent knowledge of using SQL as a user. It helps moving to the next level and contains a lot of information, however as mentioned in some reviews the index is pretty bad in some cases with "see a" then you find a and it says "see b" and it goes on. It can take some time to find what your looking for. With that a side, the book is packed with a lot of information. I use the book atleast twice a week working on my personal learning SQL server database. This is my first SQL book so I can't really compare it too another SQL book.

Hi,

I was going through the section windowing and Partioning.

Accoring to the book, Ordering happens first and partioning happens next.
I tried and found that it is viceversa.

I also referred SQL cook book by Anthony Molinaro, the subject is correctly stated.