Book actually has very limited T-SQL. Mostly triggers, USP, functions, but little actual code.

Please see review by C. Mialaret. S/he is spot on.

One gets the impression that the author may have been more focused on impressing you with his eruditeness, rather than writing a practical book with useful examples and clear explanations.

Affecianados of Kalen Delaney's 'Inside SQL Server 2000' will be disappointed.

You should think of this book as of the second volume of the two-volume set on the 2005-Server SQL. If you get this one, you'll get the other one too; neither tome is self-sufficient; in fact there's a lot of explicit interdependence. This book, Programming, deals with slightly more esoteric features than the first tome, Querying -- although I can't say you must read the first entire volume before touching this one. Both books can be read at the same time (but see what I say about the target reader below).

So, real quick:

1. Target reader: someone with a good grasp of the 2000 Server wishing to learn the new stuff that came with the 2005 server (there's a lot: the 2005 product is _much_ better than the previous: covering new features is probably the only thing that's unequivocally good about this book). This is NOT your first, nor second, nor third book on SQL in general or MS SQL Server in particular. You must have a good grasp of the basics to be able to overcome this book. I say 'overcome' advisedly; more on it below.

2. Content: Data-type subtleties (datetime, xml, CLR user-defined types -- a lot of CLR in this volume); temporary tables, cursors, dynamic SQL, views, user-defined funcs, stored procs, triggers, a bit on transactions, exception handling, a bit on service broker.

3. Very clean technically: no technical errors (and while we're here: I found no typos either).

4. Depth vs breadth: the book is more extensive than deep, although on average it's (inevitably) more in-depth than the first volume. Some reviewers here say it's very deep or difficult -- and difficult is true, although not because of PhD anything. This, unfortunately, brings me to the next point:

5. Writing: ABHORRENT. (Both volumes, Querying, and Programming, in about the same degree). That's why it seems difficult, PhD and so on -- except this difficulty isn't due to, say, conceptual complexity of the subject matter. It's the authors' extreme inability to use the English language to explain things that makes reading this book such a chore. There is also conceptual muddle (unsurprisingly: people write as they think).

Now, experience taught me to forgive literary incapacity to a _technical_ author (to a degree; and I do take notice and, if possible, avoid him in the future). In cases like that I put the blame squarely on the publisher, especially if otherwise I know the publisher to be solid. I have a pile of books from Microsoft Press and I consider them a good publisher, so what's the matter?

Although (strangely) a bit better than the first volume, this book (Programming) is also strewn with unimaginable, fantastic garbage of every possible kind, from grating usage errors to a pervasive lack of unity, coherence, and logical connectedness on the page/paragraph level, to a frequent lack of the overall unity. When I bought this book and read it a bit I was so p-off I almost sent it back (I got as far as getting an RMA from Amazon). I did keep it though. Both of them, actually.

Do I recommend this book? It has been useful to me (especially the UDF section: there's a lot of new stuff, all very handy), so -- with great reservation, and only to the right reader -- yes, kinda. And please check out what else is available (there's tons of books on the 2005 server these days). The Programming book is part of the three-volume update and extension of the server-2000 version by Delaney. Delaney's server-2000 book was extremely useful and quite decently written. I wish they let her write the new version, even though it's now three books instead of one, and I suppose it's difficult for one person to do it all.

This book has lots of sample code for developers to follow. I bought a book "Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000" written by Itzik Ben-gan about five years and loved the book. This book did great job in the SQL Scripts where you might need to spent sometime read through it.

This book is a gem for SQL developers!!! Highly recommanded!!!

This book is a must-have, even for those who uses other SQL Databases... Totally Amazing!

There are normal people, smart people, and REALLY SMART people, and the author definitely fits into the really smart category. And he has used his talent to craft an outstanding book for the SQL Server 2005 database programmer. I consider it a "must-have" resource and I also strongly recommend his T-SQL Querying book.

I have been amazed at how much I learn each time I crack the cover and very much like how the author considers alternate programming options while reviewing execution plans of the various options.

I also like how the book gives attention to all the major available SQL 2005 programming tools including a lengthy treatment of Service Broker.

If there were a PHD given for SQL proficiency, Itzik would deserve it.
This is a great book. Provides some good insight and ideas on solving some tough problems. Highly recommend it.

I do not want to repeat the other reviews. I'll say: Professional level.

I do not want to repeat the other reviews. I'll say: Professional level.

This book combined with T-SQL querying, from the same author are the best books I have seen for someone who wants to learn new features in SQL server 2005. Very cool!

I've been a SQL Server DBA for each version since 6.5, so with the release of 2005, it was time to make sure that I was up with the new stuff. It's difficult to find a book that has enough technical meat to it without just being a dump of BOL. This book is a winner for me. I really enjoy the pace and depth of the material. For those needing to just refresh their basic knowledge and those that need a good overview of the new features in 2005 (t-SQL related), this is the book for you. It's companion book, t-SQL Querying, make two great additions to anyone's library!

I am extremely disappointed by a book which is disorganized, has uncreative examples and very little added value and does not use typography and layout to it's best advantages.

While introducing a subject, the book is full of "we'll see this later" and "as i mentioned earlier", the flow of information is unstructured and unsatisfying.

Each example in a book should illustrate a point and help people understand. Here absolutely no effort is done to look for real-life example or to make them interesting. The most interesting ones are copies from sqlbol. Many do not illustrate anything at all as do the author recognize in the text ("Of course in practice you don't need dynamic sql at all in such a situation..."). What a change from Joe Celko.

The few pieces of information that are original and interesting are generally completely hidden in the text/layout, which will make it very hard to find it again some time later. Why not use more bold, italics and so forth?

Having been working on MSSQL for many years, this is definitely the most wonderful book about T-SQL programming that I have read. I was trying to take a glance at the beginning, but quickly slowed down and got immersed in comprehensive reading. It reveals a lot many details, and more importantly, the comparisons, inside T-SQL programming in a very well organized way. It also clears a lot of deeply buried common mistakes, which are often made by even advanced developers. The examples are very accurate and useful to the targeted topics. It's really a book that T-SQL developers should NOT miss. Strongly recommended.

Awesome work! Congratulations!

This book and its companion "T-SQL Querying" are two great books, they are not for beginners and in some part requires a full immersion, they are not an easy reading... but at the end you you will have a really deep understanding of the topics they covers. I've found really useful to read it two times, the second one I've noticed that a lot of sentences takes a new light after you've a whole overview of all the topics. A definitively must have. Both !

and, as if this weren't enough by itself, it is of course totally up to date. I don't want to repeat what others here say, but would like to register another thumbs-up opinion. Well done, very helpful.

This is an excellent book that should be in the library of every serious database developer. It is by far the most detailed book that I have ever read on T-SQL programming. There are many cookbooks or sql recipes books but IMHO this book is many steps ahead of the rest of the books. It is well written, with realistic examples and extremely precise. The one thing that I really loved in this book was that for every problem it provides many alternative solutions and explains the advantages of one solution over the other. Again congratulations to the authors for their great job.

As someone who has followed Itzik for a while, I expected quite a bit with this book. In every way, shape, manner and form, it delivered.

It's very well written. It addresses 'real world' issues and has plenty of examples to support the discussion. It's fairly dry subject material but Itzik keeps it interesting and the more you read, the more you want to read. Having read through it from start to finish, there was no feeling of wanting more. Everything that I wanted to see discussed was (Performance Tuning chapter was utterly superb) and it was discussed to the level I wanted.

Firstly, this is not a book for beginners or those new to T-SQL, this is targetted more towards intermediate/advanced programmers. If you're new then look at T-SQL Querying.
The level of knowledge and detail that Itzik, Dejan and Roger have and portray in this book is awesome. Do you want to know how SQL Server 2005 internally stores date/time values and what the pitfalls are that you might run into when programming against date/time values (one of the most common problems facing SQL programmers), this book has the answer.
With chapters on Stores Procedures, Transactions, temporary tables, views, the service broker and more.
Each chapter has excellent advice and knowledge and filled with sample code (available online). The book is targetted specifically at SQL Server 2005 and the new ways it handles things, new functions and commands.
My only concern and a slight one at that is that with the amount of information the authors are trying to portray in 500 pages, sometimes the reading is heavy.
An invaluable book for SQL Server 2005 programmers.