Customer Reviews

Microsoft SQL Server 7 Administrator's Guide W/CD

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

I wasn't impressed with this book. If you take out all the info that's already covered quite adequately in the Books Online, you don't have much of a book left. I was expecting a book that would take me to the next level as an administrator, but was sorely disappointed. Recommend you get Soukup/Delaney's book Inside SQL Server 7.0 instead.

Found this book really shallow and lacking in technical depth. It's really a mediocre little piece of work. Can't recommend it for the serious DBA. Get Inside SQL Server by Kalen Delaney -- it's a lot better.

My big problem with this book is the redundancy between it and the Microsoft documentation, particularly the BOL. Anything of value in this book is also in the BOL. The rest -- glib comments and generally poor writing -- you can do without. I'm a SQL Server trainer, and our books committee recently rejected this one for all the reasons above. Suggest that you do the same.

I made the mistake of buying this book without really looking it over. I saw it in a book store, then ordered it online in order to save money. I assumed that, since it was a hard back book, it was a serious, deep treatment of the many perils facing SQL Server DBAs. I was sadly mistaken.

The author has a habit of glossing over important details -- the real meat of the discussion -- through glib comments and generally poor prose. The coverage really amounts to little more than a hand-held review of the graphical tools. There's no real DBA advice here. I came away believing the author was either a poor DBA or a poor writer (or, more likely, both).

Glib comments and shallow coverage do not a useful technical book make. IMHO, I don't think this book was worthy of publication. I do not know the author and don't know if he has written anything else, so I don't know if this is an aberration or if all his writing is this bad. However, I don't see much value in this piece of work for its intended audience -- SS DBAs -- therefore, I don't see why it was published.

If you are looking for an in-depth treatment of SS administration, keep looking.

This is easily the best book out there on SQL Server 7. It's clear, concise, and all that crap that the fake reviewers from book publishers always write in their reviews. But it's also a great book to keep around the office, for the times when your DBA is on another vacation, and you've got to write your own stored procedures by Friday. It's so good that my boss went out and bought copies for the whole office (of course that was after I bought mine).

It's taught me more about SQL Server than I ever thought I'd want to know. I hope this guy is still around when MS comes out with 7.5 or 8.0 or whatever, because I'll want his reference on the subject.

This book is a waste of print. It is basically a regurgitation of the BOL (Books OnLine) - something is really missing. The writing is dreadfully boring and bad, and the technical depth just isn't there. Get Inside SQL Server - it's much better.

No new info here. No expert insights. This book is a poorly written, sophomoric waste of print. Not worth the trouble.

I'm really embarrassed that I spent my money on this"guide." It's a tour of the GUI tools. It's biggest flaw isits awful prose. The author obviously is no writer. It's boring, bland, and altogether colorless. It's written in the style of an automobile user manual -- pedestrian to a fault.

Not a very good book...Indide SQL Server by Ron Soukup is much better. The index in the back doesn't have hardly anything in it; I can never find what I'm looking for. When I do find it, there is never very much content on the topic, just a little fluff and some screenshots.

There's the occasional nugget, but I wouldn't search through all the junk to get to it.

Heard this guy speak at a conference a while back and was sorely disappointed. Somebody said he had a book out, so I thought it might be better. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Both were beyond incoherent. It was a waste of time to listen to this talk and a waste of money to buy this book. As the other reviews here have pointed out, this book is a printed version of the BOL (Books Online). If you've worked with Sql Server for even a minimum of time, you won't find anything here you don't already know or can't find in the BOL.