Customer Reviews

Database Programming with Visual Basic .NET, Second Edition

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I'd recommend this book to any experienced VB programmer that wishes to get into data access with .Net. This book isn't for beginners. If you've worked with ADO and VB for a time, it should be just right. I've invested in a couple of other Apress books and this one is of similar high quality. Lots of details, good reference material, and easy to read. Nice ADO.Net diagram tear out in the back of the book is a nice bonus.

This book is something else; not only do I get all the information I need about ADO.NET, but the way the sample code has been put together, leading to a complete application, is simply great. Don't miss out on this book!

It starts exactly where I want it to start and guides me through to the more advanced stuff. I saw the Active Directory Stuff, which isn't really me, but I do like the Message Queuing material. That was excellent. I am a fairly decent VB programmer, but the new VB.NET has taken me quite a while to get used to, so I was looking for some good book or other material to teach me ADO.NET, because it is so different to ADO. This book, even with its minor "mistakes" is worth every dime.

This is a good book, because it contains everything I ever needed to know about ADO.NET (ADO .NET?). I also needed some information on Message Queuing and that is also covered in a chapter, which is probably the best chapter of them all. I can whole heartedly recommend this book!

After having read two books on VB.Net I assumed this would cover details about programming database applications with VB.Net. Yet after lots of basic material, and a good beginning on VB.Net database information it seemed suddenly done with that and on to other topics such as messages queuing and active directory.

This is a very detailed book about ADO .NET and more. I especially like chapter 3 which is really my ADO .NET reference now, but also some of the other chapters stand out, like chapter 8 about message queues. This is a solid introduction to ADO .NET that I can recommend to any VB programmer that has previously been working with ADO.

A lot of companies including Apress tried to saturate the market with .Net books while Visual Studio.Net was in the Beta. This book is an example of that. There are 2 editions for this book, one is based on the Beta 2 and the other on the initial release of Visual Studio.Net (1.0). The Beta book has several noticeable errors and the editing was a rush job. Some of the examples resemble the on-line help and may be screen shots from the on-line help. The on-line help has improved tremendously since the Beta. The 2nd edition has corrected most of those errors and the editor has done a higher quality job. The chapters on disconnected databases (Chapters 9 thru 12) and XML (Chapter 22) are very good for understanding some of the new features of ADO.Net. Microsoft made several changes to ADO.Net and Visual Basic.Net while these products were Beta, so you want to buy the 2nd edition only. The Beta book may mislead you on several key issues.

I agree with the majority of reviewers. This book is a dud that's rushed to market. I would wait for Murach to update his classic "Database Programming with VB 6" to VB.NET. Or equally good is Balena's seminal work on VB, which I am certain he will update for .NET.

What the publishers don't understand is that rushing poor quality books not only hurts their reputation but the ability of the people that read their books. Poor knowledge = poor skills.

I think the author has something to give the programmers of today. The wording he uses is just perfect and it's easy to understand the message he's trying to gte across. Besides that, it was a breeze to read the book and I certainly got a very good intro to ADO .NET and beyond.

I can't believe people are rating this book 4 and 5 stars. Much of the book is wasted space starting with the first chapter which is an introduction to .Net. The second chapter then introduces database terms and concepts that everyone but a beginner would already know. Chapters 3A and 3B do describe every database object that is available in .Net, but this is nothing that cannot already be found in the help or MSDN. Chapter 4 describes the IDE from a Database Viewpoint. Chapter 5 is exception handling. Chapter 6 tells you how to use Stored Procedures, Views and Triggers in SQL Server 2000. Chapter 7 is Active Directory. Chapter 8 is Message Queues. Chapter 9 is datawrappers - Here's the whole chapter. Create private variables and public properties for each field in the table. Chapter 10 is Data Bound Controls. Bottom line - don't waste you money. There is nothing here that cannot be found in the help or MSDN.