Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) 5th Edition

In great conditions, awesome book. Thanks!!

I also purchased an earlier edition of this book, and liked it well enough to buy this edition.I would give it a five-star rating, but it does have a significant number of typographical and grammatical errors. Nothing that really matters, but it is distracting for this old man to deal with.Overall, the author does a great job explaining tough problems and usually gives multiple ways to solve them.

The author has earned a well-deserved reputation for SQL knowledge and insight. He provides detail and his own viewpoints that the reader probably will find nowhere else, and gives informal credit to his contributors. Sadly, I have encountered jarring misprints along the way, and I am just up to page 105 of 800+. Morgan Kaufmann doesn't make it easy to report errata.Joe needs to kick his publisher in the tail, and he is probably just the guy to do it.

Received book in bad state.Also, this is not a beginners book.

I have been using SQL for over 20 years, not a beginner. Purchased this book hoping to deepen my knowledge on some of the more obscure corners of SQL. What I find is a poorly organized book, full of typos and repeated phrases. The fact that the target audience is "smarties" does not serve as an excuse to present the material in a scattershot fashion. Sure, we will eventually figure out what you are trying to convey. However, in my world, it is still the duty of the author to guide the reader by presenting the common thread of a chapter and its main conclusions -- not just a collection of related thoughts. If I could return it I would, but the 30 day period has expired.

There can't have been an editor or a code proof reader involved in any of the editions 1-5. The typos, repeated sentences and outright code mistakes are jarring. Four stars only if you actually work through the concepts, correct the code and understand why you need to correct the code. Otherwise the editorial missteps would drop this to a three star review. Seriously, for a $50 book, the publisher needs to refund some money to someone. I'd say they should also be embarrassed, but that is probably asking too much.