The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services
This book has a reasonable return on your investment. You won’t spend much to put it in your library, it won’t take long to read and you can expect to learn the basics of reporting services from a number of view points. There two things to keep in mind, though about this book. First, this is very high level overview of the product -- sort of like looking down from a jet cruising along at 30,000 feet. Second, this book covers a lot of topics very quickly. The combination of those two factors means that this book isn’t a great introduction to Reporting Services as a whole. That said, it is a very good way to become aware of the major features and issues you’re likely to encounter with the product. I would recommend it in two either of two cases:
- As a primer to Reporting Services before moving on to the Books On-Line which ship with the product or another, more in-depth technical book.
- As a "map to the terrain" of Reporting Services so you can plan your own learning expeditions with the product.
There are a few short comings to the book I’d be remiss not to discuss. Most irksome is the number of times the concept of a Data Set is defined differently. Both the writing style and presentation are choppy. Some times information will be presented as a walk-though with screen captures, some times as bulleted lists and sometimes as just a paragraph of text. While variety in writing is a good thing, inconsistency in presentation is not, pointedly for a title like this. It would have been better to have consistently used a database for the examples that the user should have access to. Finally, the author occasionally references a concept before introducing it. This happens a both the detail level -- like reference the meta data database before defining that that is and at a conceptual level, such as when the author provides a front (what the user sees) to back (what the parts of the service) overview of Reporting Services.
I would certainly recommend this book to anybody who is looking a quick and easy introduction Reporting Services. It probably won't be the only book you’ll need, but its definitely a step in the right direction.