Mastering SQL [With CDROM]

Mastering SQL caught my attention when i noticed that the same author wrote that lovely book 'Understanding SQL', so i decided to give it a trial. I got the book about 3 weeks ago and it has been of great help towards my preparation for the exam MCP 70-029. The only problem is that the example codes do not run on Windows, and that means typing in the codes manually for those of us using Windows. I hope the author puts this in mind when he starts working towards the second edition. Apart from that, its a great book, especially for beginners like me and for the database experts, its a good reference material too!

This book was extremely useful in learning SQL. I had virtually no SQL background prior to reading this book, but Gruber's writing soon made interacting with this powerful database easy. The book starts off with an introduction to databases and then quickly delves into how to query, insert and update data into a database.The examples in the book are down to earth and illustrate what the author is attempting to show. The result sets are also clearly displayed. Helpful questions and answers appear at the end of each chapter. Gruber also covers more complex searching and eventually gets into the more complicated portions of SQL: rights management, indices, optimization and Java interaction. There is also a helpful (and lengthy) appendix at the end that covers SQL commands.The first part of the book was extremely helpful to me. I felt confident in the what I was learning and Gruber's explanations made sense. However, the material was a bit a dry. The same data set was used throughout and while being helpful in the fact that it was familiar, it didn't liven up the book. I found the middle portion of book somewhat helpful; the information was sort of sketchy and wasn't as comprehensive as I would have hoped. If one quickly wants to learn how to manipulate an SQL, this book is a definite must-have. It is easy to find information and the material was presented in a logical format. However, I'd go to a more heavy duty book on database management rather than this one for those topics.

I bought this book 3 weeks ago and must say it covers everything in great detail. I would recommend it to MS exam 70-029 candidates, as well.