10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Detailed Review, May 6, 2002
This review is from: A Programmer's Guide to ADO .NET in C# (Paperback)
I was reading this review in .Net Programmer's Magazine and found it useful. Here is some of it in case any body is interested. Overall good book for ADO.NET Beginners. Cheers!
- Max
Understanding Basics
First three chapters of this book are for beginners, who have no idea of C# and ADO.NET. Chapter 1 and chapter 2 of this book are for beginners, who are migrating to C# from other languages specially C++, VB or Java. Chapter 1 covers basic syntaxes of C# language and Chapter 2 shows how to develop Windows applications using Windows Forms and Visual Studio .NET.
Chapter 3 is the chapter, which I liked a lot. This is a small chapter, but this is where author clears every concept of ADO.NET, its architecture and its components. I like author's graphical approach, which I don't find in other books. Author explains each and every component of ADO.NET architecture graphical and shows how all components fit together and builds ADO.NET, one of the best database access technology developed by Microsoft so far.
Chapter 4 of the book is totally dedicated to visual ADO.NET components and Visual Studio .NET. Author shows how you can take advantage of Visual Studio .NET's rich features including Server Explorer, Data-bound controls, Data Form Wizard and so on.
ADO.NET Disconnected classes and Data Providers
Chapter 5 is the most important and biggest chapter of the book. In this chapter, author shows you the broad view of ADO.NET architecture and basic building blocks of ADO.NET and ADO.NET data providers. Author has divided this chapter into two parts. First part covers disconnected classes such as DataSet, DataTable, DataColumn and DataRow and how to use them in a disconnected manner. The second part of the chapter covers OleDb and Sql data providers, their components and how to write applications using Sql Server and Acccess databases. In this chapter, author goes from one component to other one by one by starting from the Connection component, followed by Command, DataAdapter, DataReader and so on.
XML and ADO.NET
6th Chapter of the book covers XML and ADO.NET. Author starts this chapter with a brief introduction of XML followed by reading, writing, deleing, searching, and navigating through XML documents. The second part of this chapter shows the relationship between ADO.NET and XML. Again, author's visual oriented approach clears many concepts, which are hard to understand by just reading few pages.
Web Development and ADO.NET
Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 are dedicated to Web development and ADO.NET. In these chapters, authors first clears basic concepts of ASP.NET model and shows how to write simple Web applications using ASP.NET and Visual Studio .NET. After that author shows how to use ASP.NET DataGrid and other data-bound controls to develop database applications using ADO.NET. Author also shows how to develop a Guest book application. Another application shows how to write Web applications which lets you add, edit and update data through Web pages.
Chapter 8 is dedicated to Web Services. Author has used Visual Studio .NET's rich features to develop Web applications, which lets you read and write databases. In the end, author also shows how to consume Web services from Web applications.
I found these two chapters useful for my Web development using ASP.NET.
Handling ADO.NET Events
Chapter 9 is a small chapter but covers every ADO.NET component and their related events. Chapter shows how to use .NET even model and how to handle ADO.NET events from time to time.
Different flavors of ADO.NET
This chapter has many elements, which didn't fit in previous chapters. This chapter shows how to write database applications utilizing the power of stored procedures, views and triggers. Author also shows various COM Interoperability issues and how to use existing COM based database technologies in managed code through ADO.NET data providers. Topics include using ADO Recordset, ADOX and ADOMD in managed code using ADO.NET. Good for developers who still wants to use ADOX, ADO, and ADOMD in managed code.
ODBC .Net Data Provider
This chapter is a useful chapter for developers who don't work with SQL Server and Access databases but uses MySQL, Oracle and other databases. In this chapter, author first covers basics of ODBC .Net data provider, which I couldn't find in two previous books. After that, an author shows examples and connection samples on how to work with different databases. Personally I didn't use any of these databases but many developers who are using MySql, Oracle, Sybase, and Excel databases will find this chapter useful. I also noticed that author even covers Oracle 8i and 9i versions.
Treat for non Database Developers
At the end of this book, two appendixes cover some basic database concepts and how to construct SQL statements. These appendixes are useful for non-SQL developers who have no idea of how to write SQL statements.
Conclusion
Overall a good buy for beginner to intermediate database developers who want to write database applications in .NET. If you already have some knowledge of C# and Windows development in .NET, you can skip chapter 1 and chapter 2.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The near perfect introduction to ADO.NET, May 29, 2002
This review is from: A Programmer's Guide to ADO .NET in C# (Paperback)
This book is an excellent introduction for the developer new to ADO.NET. The book is geared towards the C# developer using VS.NET so if that doesn't describe you then you will want to look elsewhere. If that does describe you then this is the book you want. The book starts with an introduction to C# which is probably good enough for someone familiar with Java or C++. This is followed by a brief introduction to ADO.NET and how to use VS.NET to build data driven applications. Chapter 5, the longest chapter in the book, is an excellent explanation of using ADO.NET disconnected classes and data providers. The author does an excellent job of explaining these critical topics. The book goes on to explain how XML documents fit into ADO.NET and follows this with a discussion of web applications, web services, and ADO events. The book contains a nice discussion of the ODBC data provider including how to install it into the VS.NET toolkit. This information is not easily found elsewhere. I especially like the author's style, which makes the book feel like a discussion with an enthusiastic co-worker rather than as a dry treatise. The book contains quite a few step-by-step, screen-by-screen examples of building applications. If you are (or plan to be) a C# developer and are new to ADO.NET you are unlikely to find a better book than this one for making this complex topic easily reachable.
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