Take a detailed look at the internal architecture of T-SQL?and unveil the power of set-based querying?with comprehensive reference and advice from the experts. Database developers and administrators get best practices, sample databases, and code to master the intricacies of the programming language?solving complex problems with real-world solutions. Discover how to: ?Understand logical and physical query processing ?Apply a methodology to optimize query tuning ?Solve relational division problems ?Use CTEs and ranking functions to simplify and optimize solutions ?Aggregate data with various techniques, including tiebreakers, pivoting, histograms, and grouping factors ?Use the TOP option in a query to modify data ?Query specialized data structures with recursive logic, materialized path, or nested sets solutions ?PLUS?Improve your logic and get to the heart of querying problems with logic puzzles Get code and database samples on the Web 

Take a detailed look at the internal architecture of T-SQL and unveil the power of set-based querying with comprehensive reference and advice from the experts. Database developers and administrators get best practices, sample databases, and code to master the intricacies of the programming language solving complex problems with real-world solutions. Discover how to: Understand logical and physical query processing Apply a methodology to optimize query tuning Solve relational division problems Use CTEs and ranking functions to simplify and optimize solutions Aggregate data with various techniques, including tiebreakers, pivoting, histograms, and grouping factors Use the TOP option in a query to modify data Query specialized data structures with recursive logic, materialized path, or nested sets solutions PLUS Improve your logic and get to the heart of querying problems with logic puzzles Get code and database samples on the Web

2008-03-04 An excellent well written book

I looked through the reviews of the books with SQL in the title and opted for this one as is had the highest number of 5 star reviews.

Having read 5 chapters in the last day my conclusion is that this is one of the best technical computer books I have ever read, and I have quite a few. The progress through the book is well paced with good thought provoking examples. An acceptable number of times I have had to re-read sections to fully understand the concepts and this has noticably improved by understanding of the SQL language.

I would recommend this book to anyone with equivalent experience, which is a few months of SQL table design/querying such that you have the basics already in hand. This moves you on from the basics.

Get this book if you are looking to improve SQL querying. Do not get this book if you are looking to program data access in .Net or something else, get a C# book then.