Pro ADO.NET 2.0, Apress
Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Visual C# (CSharp, C Sharp, C-Sharp) Developer Training, Visual Studio
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C# Online.NET Book Review
First off, the word Pro in the book's title may be a bit misleading. The book is much more suitable for a beginner or—perhaps—for an intermediate who wants a thorough grounding in ADO.NET 2.0. Throughout the book, the reader is led step by step through the various topics, making even difficult topics seem straightforward if not downright simple.
The author has a light and lucid touch and a conversational style which makes the book very readable. But, I, personally, find some of his attempts to lighten the tone a bit sophomoric—"you are now nearing the ADO.NET planet". Fortunately, such flights of fancy constitute a miniscule portion of an otherwise excellent technical presentation. Generally, the author begins a discussion with an overview then fleshes out the details. There are plenty of advanced scenarios, best practices, insights, tips, and tricks.
The coverage of ADO.NET 2.0 is impressive, including:
- ADO.NET object model
- Common Language Runtime (CLR) in SQL Server
- conflict detection and concurrency resolution
- Connection objects
- Connection pooling
- data caching
- DataAdapter
- DataSets
- editing disconnected data
- mapping
- object-oriented versus relational representation
- SQL Server native XML support
- transactions
- T-SQL versus SQLCLR versus Extended Stored Procedures
Disappointingly, neither DataTableReader nor ObjectDataSource are mentioned; and, SqlDataSource is mentioned only in passing. But, the book is meant to be more of a tutorial than a reference book: The book is not a massive tome. And, editorial descisions must be made.
All examples are very practical and given in both C# and VB.NET. It is not a book of ADO.NET 2.0 features. Instead, it gives the feel and guidance for how your own code should be constructured.
Although Oracle is not neglected, the best coverage is of SQL Server. In fact, the last two chapters deal exclusively with SQL Server 2005 features. However, these final chapters are not written to the same high standard of readability as the rest of the book.
Bottom line
Newcomers to ADO.NET 2.0 will find Pro ADO.NET 2.0 very educational and readable and will be rewarded with a solid foundation in ADO.NET.
Other books in this series
Other reviews
"Sahil goes beyond the surface of ADO.NET 2.0 to describe what happens, how it happens, and why things are designed the way they are in ADO.NET and its surrounding technologies."
— Pablo Castro, ADO.NET Team Program Manager, Microsoft
"Sahil delivers a clear and detailed view into the internals of ADO.NET 2.0. The author's enthusiasm for the subject manages to permeate the chapters making even traditionally hard subjects like distributed transactions easily accessible. A great introduction to ADO.NET 2.0."
— Angel Saenz-Badillos, ADO.NET Team Software Design Engineer in Test, Microsoft
Publisher's description
Pro ADO.NET 2.0 is a guide and reference for.NET developers who are looking to further their understanding of ADO.NET 2.0.
This book takes a new approach, focusing on the practical tasks like connecting to the database, retrieving data, and working with transactions, rather than rehashing much of the MSDN documentation. Pro ADO.NET 2.0 offers the deep and much needed practical understanding, viewpoint, and knowledge developers are looking for.
This book explains what is available in ADO.NET by associating it with the need to solve a practical problem and better architect an application, rather than mugging up the hundreds of classes and properties available in the framework.
About the author(s)
Sahil Malik has been working as a consultant in Microsoft technology for about 9 years now. He has worked for many top notch clients across the globe including many fortune 100 companies and government organizations within the United States. Malik started programming in a DOS world, moved to Win32 API, Borland C++, MFC, VC++/ATL, VB 6, and eventually to .NET in both VB.NET and C# worlds. He is currently helping architect a highly visible public website using ASP.NET 2.0/SQL Server 2005, and also leads the office of emerging technologies at a prominent government office. Malik frequently speaks at local user groups and conferences. He also co-wrote Pro ADO.NET with VB .NET 1.1. For his community involvement and contribution, he has also been awarded the Microsoft MVP award.
