Too much dogma. Who would not know to close your office door? He suggests getting an office with a door? Like we have a choice. A chapter on making your room conducive to programming? Huhh? and then he complains about screenshots like all of us have a laptop with us at all times to fire up!! yeah baby. WORST of all he DIS's ROB and his great wrox book in his 4 year too late chapter on DTS. Yeah...read toward the beginning about how he once bought a SQL programming book...yeah right...like Ken H. bought a wrox SQL book in 99-2000!! sure. But he goes on to tell how awful it was, why there were 2 screen shots on just ONE page with only one line of explanatory text in between. Oh my Ken. How awful. I know what book he's talking about and ROB does not deserve that kind of treatment from anyone, esp. someone who calls themselves a guru in third person of all people!! Rob is a humble smart, GREAT writer and that book was/is wildly poplular and those comments were way out of line. I suggest he prints a retraction somewhere...on this site maybe??? Look on page 836. He chooses to(discreetly I will say) lay into Rob who is the coolest guy I know in the world of SQL. NOT COOL!! I know for a fact it's Rob V's book he's talking about and I know many many who learned sql from that book. The guru's series is ok for the t-sql, but beyond the techie tricks performed with sprocs etc., there is nothing that a developer can take away from them. This book and book 2 both include close to verbatim rewrites of the prior book, with new material added. I think that should have been noted to the consumer. When I start reading something and I know i've read the exact same thing in the past, I find it hard to not be irritated that I was not informed it was merely a new "edition". With a few new chapters of very dubious worth added in.