Customer Reviews

Serious ADO: Universal Data Access with Visual Basic

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I started reading what looked like a heavy book on ADO, and finished up really understanding how to use ADO in all kinds of applications. I now know about marshaling and MTS transactions, and how ADO was designed to work with these technologies. I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to go beyond typing in code samples. It explained so much more about how to put applications together, and my users are very happy with the improvements to my applications. I now feel like an expert!

I only have a few months to come up with an architecture for the front end. Personally, I prefer working with powerbuilder better because of their excellent product that works well with databases. I worked with VB 4 years ago and used RDO and DAO a lot. I was not impressed with them at all because you don't have a lot of control over the database issues.

I thought ADO was going to be the same and I did not have a good feeling about it. Having only a few weeks to get me up-to-speed, I thus bought this book. It was a very good decision. This book explains in details about the recordset, command, and parameter objects that you need to know before designing/developing your first app (in my case). My perception on ADO has changed 3 days after I started reading this book, thanks to this book.

This book teaches you how from the beginning especially on what methods to adopt when fetching, updating, deleting, or inserting records. You will find out all those chapters on connected/disconnected recordset to be very helpful.

In our new app, I am supposed to create a middle-tier and take advantage of connection pooling. This book also has a detail description on how you can go about implementing a three-tier.

A beginner may find this book to be a bit challenging since there are a lot of ideas need to be digested. However, for someone who has some ideas on design and need to find out what is the best way to execute it, in this case writing a good vb app, this is the book for you.

because here is one ADO text that replaces 5 ADO books with a red spine.

Having spent months trying to get my head round ADO, I have finally succeeded thanks to Serious ADO. It has explained everything I needed to know, and some things I had previously ignored. I love the layout - and the content - so full marks all round

I found this book an approachable, clearly presented and thorough guide to using ADO. A strength of this book is the way in which it give the reader an understanding of how ADO works `under the covers' and the consequences of different design decisions. The author presents a balanced view of the technology, clearly explaining the benefits and power of ADO while never succumbing to the somewhat sycophantic attitude towards Microsoft that can be found in some other books. Not, perhaps, an ideal book for those new to working with databases, but if you are looking to understand how ADO really works and make best use of it in your applications then this book comes highly recommended.

I should reveal my conflict of interest here: This book is published by APress and I'm currently writing a book for APress. And there are a couple of good ADO books out there, from other publishers. This one is my favourite. The book covers all of ADO and, more importantly, gives you the author's guidence on how and when to use those features. I learn something new everytime that I pick it up.

His ideas are good, but to understand them requires some work on your part. They didn't even bother to use the type of font and layout that you would expect from a textbook, thereby leaving you with the feeling that you're reading something that's just been typed in a hurry and you can't wait for the book!

I think this book is best suited for the person who is already an expert (or nearly one) and wants to get a "black belt" in ADO programming for use in some of the more hard core projects out there.

I read McManus's Database Access with Visual Basic 6 and it was a great book, well deserved 4 stars! Why 4? because it lacked a lot of information about ADO, multiuser applications, MTS, COM+, 3-tier, etc., etc.. it lacked many of things professional developers talk so much these days, it lacked all the things Mcdonals writes about in his book! Intermediate as well as Advanced users will find this book very, very useful, with a lot of good (and actually working) examples and written with a good sense of humor too! 611 pages that will change your life as a software developer. Not for newbie.

I haven't finished the book yet, but every page that I read, brings more knowledge than the last. Very informative, to the point, and in-depth. Not for the beginner, but for a VB developer that is very familiar with the basics of ADO. I have paged through many ADO reference books that are completely unapproachable and confusing at best. Books like that are worthless. There are many wonderful features to ADO which are unlocked with this fantastic book. Also, tons of cool code to play with!

There are a bunch of VB Database and ADO books out there, but Rob Macdonald's effort stands head and shoulders above them all. Be prepared, though, to work hard; this book presents complex issues as simply as possible, but it's not for the casual skimmer. It attacks ADO in depth ... as the title says, "seriously." The beginning VB programmer will have a heck of a tussle with "Serious ADO", as it assumes full competence in VB programming. It's written so clearly, though, that even the beginner ... if he or she is very determined, and looks up everything that's unfamiliar in some more basic VB book ... will come out of this learning experience a much better VB programmer. If you want to learn VB ADO, this is the book you need.

McDonald definitely knows what he is talking about when writing about ADO. Unfortunately, he has difficulty communicating that knowledge to someone who is starting out. His chapters on recordsets are generally quite useful. To set up my connection to the database I was using, however, I had to refer to other sources. His chapter on explicit connections is confusing, with a convoluted style.
His index is also incomplete. For instance, the expression DSN (Data Source Name) is found nowhere in either the index or glossary, despite its importance and use throughout the book. I found that many references to the index simply didn't exist.
If you already have a beginner's grasp of ADO and VB, the book is quite useful. If you're just starting out, however, look for some other source.