LINQ Programming [Paperback]

Joe Mayo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 19, 2008

Take your LINQ programming skills to the top tier

Resolve data format impedance mismatch with guidance from a C# expert and Microsoft MVP. LINQ Programming details cutting-edge techniques to effectively assimilate XML, SQL, ADO.NET, and unstructured data sources. Build powerful LINQ queries, handle hierarchical and relational data, use lambdas and expression trees, and develop multi-threaded applications. Get proven strategies for handling conflicts and exceptions and creating custom extension methods. Additionally, you'll learn how to create your own LINQ provider through a working example, LINQ to Twitter.

• Filter, order, and group code using LINQ to Objects
• Query relational and unstructured data with LINQ to SQL and LINQ to XML
• Work with ADO.NET through LINQ to DataSet
• Deploy object-oriented programming techniques and LINQ to Entities
• Read, manipulate, and create C#-based XML documents
• Generate DBML and external mapping files with SqlMetal
• Create custom lambdas, expressions, providers, and extensions
• Support concurrent processing and multi-threading using PLINQ
• Build a custom LINQ provider for working with any data source

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"A superior guide to a new world of programming. This text is the best laid out, and the most thoughtful and thorough examination of this subject that I have yet seen. ...An excellent guide to that wondrous new world written by an expert working at the peak of his powers." --From the foreword by Charlie Calvert, C# Community Program Manager, Microsoft

About the Author

Joe Mayo, Microsoft MVP, is an author and instructor who specializes in Microsoft .NET software technology. He owns Mayo Software Training and operates the C# Station website.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (December 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071597832
• ISBN-13: 978-0071597838
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe Mayo has been developing software since 1986. His experience includes an assortment of main-frame, desktop, and web development on different operating systems, including UNIX and Windows. He got started in the early days of .NET, back in July 2000, when .NET was still a pre-beta product. These days, Joe operates Mayo Software Consulting, Inc., a small business with a skilled team of developers serving customers with custom software development and specializing in Microsoft .NET technology.

In addition to professional activities, Joe enjoys contributing to the community. He operates the C# Station web site, blogs, twitters, and posts to various .NET-related forums. His books include LINQ Programming/McGraw-Hill, C# 3.0 Unleashed: with the .NET Framework 3.5/Sams, ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips/Wrox (co-author), C# Builder Kick Start/Sams, and C# Unleashed/Sams. Joe is honored for having received multiple Microsoft MVP awards.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LINQ Covered, December 31, 2009

By 

G. van Staden "g-m@n" (AU) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: LINQ Programming (Kindle Edition)

This book covers just about anything you'd want to know about LINQ. The examples given are really useful. As a reader you have the option of just reading the first part of each chapter which covers a particular aspect of LINQ or diving in deep in by examining what happens at the CLR level (covered in the latter part of each chapter). LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML and LINQ to SQL are all presented but the author goes further showing how to extend LINQ for your own custom needs. It is comprehensive enough to keep as a reference, so I got the Kindle version in order to keep it nearby at work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Handy Guide, March 10, 2009

By 

Orange County .NET User Group (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LINQ Programming (Paperback)

With just 300+ pages, the book is loaded with code examples for different scenarios. Easy to read, no complicated details.

-Review by Hoiyin Ip, OC.NET User Group member

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Explaination Of LINQ Technology, April 20, 2009

By 

James G. O'neill (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LINQ Programming (Paperback)

Compared to most .Net developers I am a relative novice. I don't develop in .Net full time. I'm a Java developer by day and do some consulting in .Net on nights and weekends. My experiences with .Net so far have been some basic ASP.Net web sites with SQL Server as the back end database. Most of my experience has been with Visual Studio 2008. I wanted to review this book to assist me in coming up to speed in LINQ and Visual Studio 2008. I started this will little or no exposure to LINQ. I just knew that it was a new programming tool from Microsoft to make accessing databases easier for the .Net developer. My goal from reading this book was to walk away with basic knowledge of using LINQ. Now having read the book and done the exercises that are included in it, I can say that I do have a basic understanding of how to use LINQ. I liked the fact that the author, Joe Mayo, chose to include exercises for the reader to do along with reading his book. I'm of the school that learns by doing, not by simply reading about new technologies, so this was very helpful for me in terms of understanding the concepts the author was discussing.

I got through all of the exercises except one that I had trouble with. I emailed the author about my troubles and he responded the same day and informed me that I needed to install Visual Studio 2008 service pack two to get the new functionality that I need for the exercise. I thought it was very nice of him to get back to me so quickly! I did have some trouble due to my lack of experience with some of the more advanced features of the C# programming language, (partial classes and partial methods, Lambda expressions etc). None of these issues were show stoppers in getting through the material in the book.

I was very impressed with the LINQ technology. You can just drag and drop a table from your database onto the page in Visual Studio and it builds a great deal of code for you. It builds the code that you will use to insert and update your data in that table. Very impressive! Microsoft has come a long way in terms of making a developer's job easier.

I had a really hard time with the syntax that LINQ uses. I'm an old Oracle developer and it took me a while to get used to this SQL server way of writing queries, but LINQ queries look entirely different than what I'm used to and it is not intuitive to me.

I'm used to:
SELECT first_name
FROM Users WHERE last_name = `Jones'

The same query in LINQ is something like:
FirstNames =
FROM names in Users
WHERE last_name = `Jones'
SELECT first_name

I'm having a really hard time with this new syntax but I will get used to it as I get more experience and it has nothing to do with the book or the author, it has to do with the technology of LINQ.

I thought the book was well written and well organized. It's obvious to me the Mr. Mayo has a great deal of knowledge and experience with LINQ and .Net development in general and it shows in his book. I think this is a good book for experienced .Net developers. I think I would have gotten more out of the book if I had a little more .Net programming experience. This is not a book for a beginner in .Net, Visual Studio 2008, or Database development. There are other beginner level books more specific to those topics where beginners should go.