Customer Reviews

Microsoft® ADO.NET 2.0 Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

First, let me give you a little background on my experience level. I'm a Computers Engineering student at a local college. I've worked with C# and databases for some time now, but I usually work the code from scratch (no data binding, etc), instead of using the vast array of ADO.NET features.

I read (more like "tried to read") the version of this book that covers ADO.NET 2003. I didn't learn much from it. It all seemed too complex for me, at the time. I dropped the book and, while I managed to accomplish my programming tasks, I bet it would have been a lot easier with some higher ADO.NET knowledge.

This time around I have a bit more experience when it comes to .NET (not everything sounds like chinese now). I feel quite comfortable with the book and think I'm learning a lot.

Overall, I've read up till chapter 6 and I'm quite satisfied. Would certainly recommend it!

BTW: All it takes to get the examples to work is reading the instructions which are explained in the first pages.

My college textbook coverage of ADO.NET left me with more questions than answers, so I searched for other resources. I thought I had learned how to read the book reviews on Amazon.com and have used them as a guide for buying in the past. So when I read the review for this book, I initially gave it a pass and purchased "Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0: Core Reference" by David Sceppa. The Core Reference is excellent, but after reading most of it I felt that it was a just a little over my head. What I first needed was a good introduction to ADO.NET.

So, I purchased this book, have read most of it and have worked the tutorials. It has been excellent for my needs. The writing style is clear and thorough, and now I have a much better understanding of how the various components of ADO.NET work together.

I had no trouble installing the code samples; just followed the instructions in the Introduction.

Most things I have ever wrote a review in the past are usually very positive. And for the record, I like Microsoft's books for the most part. Especially the great authors like Francesco Balena or David Sceppa. But unfortunately Rebecca's book (how can I say this and be polite?) flat stinks. (Sorry Rebecca).

I know there have been some advancements in the .NET 2.0 platform, and I know that ADO.NET has some advancements. But for understanding ADO.NET's core functionilties, David Sceppa's book is still the best. Though if you wanted to see the new features of ADO.NET, you will find any book by any other author is better than this one.

Sorry to sound so negative but its the plain truth, you will learn nothing valuable from this book.

I'm new to ADO, and ADO.NET 2.0. I found this book to be a useful learning tool. I'd purchased two other ADO.NET 2.0 books before this one, and tried using them. But realized I needed a beginner's book. I've just finished the 1st four chapters. And I'm happy with the book, and what I'm learning. I'll finish this book, before returning to the other two I've purchased.

I find the book well written.

A key issue for me is that Rebecca shows how to create components both manually and through the GUI. I find this quite useful, as now I can relate hand wired code to that generated by Microsoft. Also, I didn't know my way around the many ADO menus as well as I thought I did.

I was able to install the database, and the samples work.

If you're truly a beginner to ADO.NET 2.0, I strongly suggest this book (I'm new to ADO, but lots of experience with .NET forms, C/C++, realtime programming, COM, etc. - to give you an idea of the context in which I found the book useful).

I have used the Microsoft Press Step-By-Step series books for years. This book covering ADO 2.0 is one of the better ones. It treats a subject that is complex, particularly given the changes since version 1.0. The author did a good job of dividing the subject matter into logical segments and explaining it in terms understandable to the common soul. I feel it is important to read the 'between' material and not fall into the trap of skipping over these parts to do only the exercises.

- It's sloppily written.

This book is filled with lousy code which "works" but is often incorrect. Some of this is just sloppy code (e.g. calling ToString() on properties which are already strings) but some of it is more serious, like the try-catch-finally blocks in the transaction chapter which attempt to trap SqlExceptions but won't catch the DbExceptions that are thrown on concurrency errors. Or how about when she says the FieldCount property of a DataTableReader returns the number of rows instead of columns (pp 143-4)? The whole book is filled with mistakes like this.


- The explanations are terrible.

I've read some of the other reviews where someone has claimed they learned a lot from this book. I don't mean to come off as a Mr. Smarty-Pants, but I don't think these people learned as much as they think they did.

The problem is that the author just shows you n ways to do thing x without any context whatsoever. Like all the examples where you spend a lot of time reading about different ways to add relations, constraints, etc. to DataSets. That's super but most people will never do that - you set that up in the DATABASE, not in your program code. The average person will use the DataSource wizard to generate all that code magically from a properly set up database. The author is just giving you a more verbose and hand-holding version of MSDN instead of really showing you how to use ADO.NET.

The chapter on transactions (chapter 5) is a great example of how she fails to explain anything. Look on page 114 and ask yourself why you add the insert commands to the transaction but then call the update commands. Why do you think you do that? Go ahead and play with the code, trying inserts, updates and deletes to see how brittle that code really is and how easy it is to get concurrency errors. What happens if you insert a row and delete a different one and then try to update? The author really hasn't given you the understanding you need to work past these issues but you can bet this kind of thing will come up in the real world.

I also hate when books about difficult, complex topics (threading, databases, etc.) make everything seem so sunny and easy when it's really not that way at all. This book does nothing to prepare you for common problems that will come up when you are trying to write your own database application.


- The code samples are not that great.

To begin with, the code is only available on the CD and not online. If you lose it, MS Press will happily send you another one (call MS press support) but why can't I just download it?

My real beef with the examples is how non-pedagogical they are. Most exercises consist of drag-n-dropping a component and/or typing a few lines, hitting F5 and clicking a button to see a boring result. Each chapter has its own test application so there's no unified application to build and develop. There's no continuity and no repetition to build mastery. The author never shows you how to play around and explore what you just did.

The database installation also leaves something to be desired. The installer doesn't recognize real SQL Server installations and doesn't provide the log file so if you want to install it elsewhere you'll have to install it on a workstation that does have SQL Server Express, copy the log file, uninstall it and then attach the files normally. Why didn't they just provide the log file to begin with?


- Summary

This book is terrible. Most people will only gain only a cursory knowledge of how ADO.NET works from reading this book and working through the examples. If you use Rebecca's code examples in a real application, your coworkers will hate you, your code will wind up on thedailywtf.com and you will get fired. It's also a complete rip-off at $[...]. If you cut out the duplicate C#/VB examples and long lists of properties and methods that you could get on MSDN you'd be down to about 100 pages. I'd highly recommend getting some other book.

As a final note, although the book contains examples in VB and C# and does an ok job of being language neutral, you'll still see VB idioms like New() and the author is clearly a VB programmer. If that gives you fits, you'll definitely want another book. Way to perpetuate the "VB programmers are idiots" stereotype, Rebecca!

This book is brilliant. I hadn't used VB since ODBC was the way to talk to databases. I found all the ADO.NET 2 stuff bewildering but this book explains it all really well and in plain english. It has helped me to become productive while also helping me understand what what I need to do and why. ADO seems straightforward to me now, thanks to this book. The examples on the CD all worked fine too.

I can't understand why there are so many negative reviews of this book. I have used the previous version of ado.net and bought this book to help learn what's new in 2.0. I found it to be very easy to understand and thorough. I didn't try to install the samples, so I don't know if there are problems installing them, but as far as the contents of the book, I have no complaints at all and would recommend it to someone moving from version 1.1 to 2.0.

I have read other books in the "Step-by-Step" series and have been very impressed. This one, however, is terrible. It is poorly written, jumps around, provides way too much detail where isn't needed and too little detail where it is needed.

Save your money.

Great book! This book actually helped me understand the things I was trying to learn in class.