Some of the chapters are totally beneficial while others offer very little and explain things poorly.

I guess if it fits a need it;s worth it, but there was nothing in here you could not Google when needed. i guess it's supposed to take a programmer and show them how to program with SharePoint. if you have time to go page by page and are new to SharePoint you will get more out of it.
I would stick with the Ted Pattison book persoanlly...

The book is good but the source code of Chapter 13 is missing.
It's very frustrating to learn a new technology and see problems with the source code.
Wish the authors can take time to check the source-code is uptodate before releasing a book, or at least put it for download after complaints.
If the authors can update the source code, it will be great.
Otherwise a good book.

I was given this book by one of the Author (John Holiday) during a training on Enterprise Content Management. I have collected quite a few books on SharePoint most proclaiming to be a developers guide but they have chapters after chapters devoted to configuring WWS 3.0 or MOSS. However, this book gives you a very good start and provides step by step guide on creating various solution.
I would recommend this for all beginners and intermediate developers!!!

Working on a few projects I needed to find some good Sharepoint 2007 reference books. This book is excellent with the examples it provides and the way they authors explain it to you. Very easy to understand, clear and concise.

I do however wish they had more real world examples like for example when working with events in sharepoint they would show you how to retrieve the id's from the list lookups when assigning to another list programmatically, or how to change the permission of a selected item for a selected specific group or person, or access active directory.

Other than that, it is a good book that will help you get along your way.

I always find WROX books are the best value for money. This book is no exception. The details this book provides is atypical and that is what I find very useful. Devil is in the details and we need that for programming.

If you are interested in Solutions Development on SharePoint Platform, this book is a very good companion.