LINQ Quickly [Paperback]

N. Satheesh Kumar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 16, 2007

This book gets you started with LINQ and shows how it will make your programming life easier by making use of new features from the .NET Framework 3.0. This book is split into seven chapters, each of which is dedicated to presenting a feature of LINQ and its usage in real-life scenarios.Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a new feature in Visual Studio 2008 that extends its query capabilities, using C# and Visual Basic. Visual Studio 2008 comes with LINQ provider assemblies that enable the use of LINQ with data sources such as in-memory collections, SQL relational databases, ADO.NET Datasets, XML documents, etc. In Visual Studio 2008, Visual C# and Visual Basic are the languages that implement the LINQ language extensions. LINQ language extensions use the new standard query operators API, which is the query language for any collection that implements IEnumerable.This book is for .NET developers who want to find out exactly what LINQ is, what it can do for them, and how to program with LINQ.This book presumes a sound knowledge of XML, ADO.NET, and .NET data access-No knowledge of LINQ is presumed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

N. Satheesh Kumar has Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science Engineering and has around eleven years of experience in software development life cycle, project, and program management. He started his career developing software applications using Borland software products in a company based in India and then moved to the United Arab Emirates where he continued developing custom application software using Borland Delphi and customizing Great Plain Dynamics (now known as Microsoft Dynamics) for an automobile company. He moved back to India and spent three years designing and developing application software using Microsoft products for a top Multinational Company in India and then spent couple of years in Project Management and Program Management activities. Now he works as a Technical Architect for a top retail company based in the United States. He works with the latest Microsoft technologies and has published many articles on LINQ and other features of .NET.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (November 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847192548
• ISBN-13: 978-1847192547
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,354,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars So-so reference, needs editing, May 17, 2009

By 

R. Lear (LA, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LINQ Quickly (Paperback)

Before reading this book, I had read a few blogs and tutorials on LINQ, enough to realize I needed to better understand the technology. The book seemed ideal: short, assumed you knew XML, C#, etc and had plenty of example code. (and was one of the less expensive books on the subject).

Unfortunately it seems to have been put together hurriedly. Much of the example code doesn't work as published, some of the code is sloppy (variables initialized but never used), and the actual output of the code doesn't match what the text says it should be.

Fortunately, the text itself is clear and gives you enough of a sense of what is going on that you can, with some effort, get the examples going.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a great tutorial book, March 28, 2008

By 

Chris Stewart (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LINQ Quickly (Paperback)

I've been reading another book from Packt Publishing, called "LINQ Quickly". Again, it's a pretty short book, coming in at 250 pages. The author does a decent job at explaining the basis of LINQ and the various implementations, such as LINQ to SQL, and so on. What would have been a welcome addition to this book is a more practical approach to the technology. Perhaps by building a real application along the way. There is an appendix for just that, but it's a disappointing 7 pages. The book's subtitle mentions it being a practical guide but I didn't see that.

If you want a brief overview of what's possible with LINQ and the various implementations, you'll probably find the same information for free across the web. I was hoping for more of a real-world introduction.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview and Standard Query Operator reference, February 27, 2008

By 

Scott Dorman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LINQ Quickly (Paperback)

The book provides a good overview of LINQ and it's supporting language features, such as anonymous types, implicit typing, object initializers, extension methods, and expressions. It then builds on that introduction to cover the various LINQ implementations, such as LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML, and LINQ to SQL. A very thorough look at the different Standard Query Operators closes the book.

Also provided are two simple examples that really help highlight the power and flexibility of LINQ. The first example shows how to create a web site that uses LINQ to populate a data grid and some form elements. The other example shows how to use LINQ against the Outlook object model to retrieve the details of an Outlook contact.

One thing that this book mentions very clearly that hasn't been talked about much is that LINQ to SQL is able to make use of not just embedded SQL but also stored procedures and walks the reader through the steps necessary in order to make effective use of LINQ and stored procedures.

While the style of writing in the book was a little hard to follow, the technical content of the book appeared to be both accurate and thorough, taking the most in-depth look at LINQ to XML and then the Standard Query operators.