Author/s : Anne Boehm, Ged Mead
Publisher : Mike Murach & Associates
Category :
C# and .NET
Review by : Rob Spoor
Rating : 8 horseshoes
The book follows the Murach style - on the left pages there is text, on the right pages there are screen shots, code snippets, and short summaries of the text on the left. For experienced programmers it's tempting to skip the entire left pages and focus on the right pages only.
The book is an excellent source for starting with ADO.NET. It starts with a basic introduction into databases and SQL itself, then ADO.NET. After that comes all the interesting stuff: using data sources, datasets, commands, parameters, transactions - the works. You'll learn to write applications with both direct database access and with three-tier architectures. After the form-based chapters the book repeats a few subjects but this time for ASP.NET, with its specialized controls. The book ends with XML data sources, reporting, LINQ and the Entity Framework. In the end
you should be able to use ADO.NET quite well.
The only problem I have with the book is that it sometimes teaches you to use one specific tool - Visual Studio 2010. While that's somewhat understandable, it does mean that users of other tools will not be able to use several chapters. The reporting chapter is the worst, actually requiring the full (non Express) version of Visual Studio 2010.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in
exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
More info at Amazon.com 
