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It has taken me a while to come back and review this book. The reason it has taken so long is because there is not much positive to say about the book.
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First, the book feels very poorly edited. By the time I was done reading the book, red pen in hand, I felt more like an editor than someone studying a subject. I bought the book to learn about SQL Server 2008 but even I was able to find several factual errors. The most annoying errors were the numerous places where you are asked to answer questions about subjects that had not yet been covered, and at times never covered. This was not only present in the book, but also in the practice software. Eventually, it seemed rather pointless to attempt the practice software until after reading the whole book, even though it allowed for chapter specific practice. Beyond that there were also more grammatical and composition errors than one would like to see in a textbook.
Second, this book throws a lot of information at you and it tries to explain what that information is good for; however, it often reads more like Microsoft’s SQL Server Books Online than a teaching manual. This being the case there is little reason to buy what is given away for free.
What I did like about the book was the real life examples. Putting in a scenario to help you understand what can be done with what you are learning is great. I only wish the book had many more of these.
For the most part I trusted that the author knew what he was talking about, despite the errors. From reading the book I could tell that this guy knows his stuff, unfortunately, when I was finished I did not feel like that knowledge was passed on very well. This was after reading each chapter two and sometimes three times, plus taking notes.
In contrast, I just finished another Microsoft Press book, which I found immensely helpful, easy to understand, and with just one reading I retained 80% or more of the content. With that in mind I felt better about my assessment of this book. The difference is night and day.
Bottom line, I would not recommend this book. You can find a list of what you will be tested on from Microsoft’s website, and from there you can use the Microsoft Books Online and some other Microsoft Press books to cover what you do not know.
