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Review
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Reviewed: November, 2011 |
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Reviewer: George
McCarrolle |
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When I read the previous edition of this book concentrating on ADO.NET 3.5 I
was not thoroughly impressed. However, this new ADO.NET 4 edition is vastly
improved on the old edition. Having read other Murach publications over the
past few years the style of instruction is unchanged. As you begin to thumb
through the book notice the layout of all Murach books; the left side is
setup for the user to read the test in that particular section, while on the
right hand side is reserved screenshots and detailed descriptive data. This
style serves the reader well; it allows you to understand the basic concept
while being immersed with the actual look and feel of the application you
creating.
The only gotcha’s I should mention before I delve into
the book is the need to have Visual Studio 2010 installed. If you don’t have
Visual Studio 2010 IDE installed you must do so right away. All of the code
examples throughout the book along with the code examples you can download
from the murach.com website use Visual Studio 2010 IDE. The other gotcha is
based on the fact that C# is the language of choice, okay a very obvious
choice for me, but I must mention it none the less. With that, it must be
stated that this book is a great primer for Visual Studio. As you walk
through the book, you can’t help but come away with a greater appreciation
of Visual Studio 2010 IDE and what it can accomplish when paired with a good
programmer.
If you are new to ADO.NET then this is the book for
you. The instruction starts with a basic introduction to databases, then
ADO.NET. At this point, the book moves into more specific content tailored
around creating a working ADO.NET application that allows end users to view
and interact with the data.
The book is really designed for programmers new to
ADO.NET, but not new to C#. The book focuses on ADO.NET from a C#
development perspective. For programmers who live in the C# world this will
not be an issue. I come from the background of C++ and Java, and thus I
needed to brush up on my C# when I purchased the ADO.NET 2008 version a few
years ago. In the mean time I have enjoyed learning C#, along with creating
various programs due to this book.
I learned a lot from this book. It introduced me to
areas of Visual Studio that I had never seen before, as well as LINQ and
Entity Framework. There's a great deal of material here, and it is presented
in great fashion. It lives up to the Murach claim that their books are
"several books in one", replacing what would otherwise be a book on ADO, a
book on LINQ, and another book to solidify the topic. The depth of the
instruction is second to none. The other item worth mentioning is this book
only focuses on SQL Server, but I suspect if you are using another RMDBS
such as Oracle you may use Apex or something else to pull and display your
database data.
As I moved through the section of the book while
working with the download code examples provided I was struck by how easy it
is to learn the various concepts the book is teaching. In most books you are
given two ways to digest the information. One way is have all of the
information thrown at you, and you hope you’ll come away with some sense of
what you are doing, or the other way is to immerse you in the code and have
you learn the programming skills using the hands on method. This book, along
with all of the books in the Murach series allow the reader to use both
options and this greatly enhances the learning experience. I personally have
several Murach books in my collection.
I personally enjoyed the section on XML data, along
with the updated LINQ and Entity Framework section as well. All in all, this
book will allow you build a solid C# ADO.NET programming foundation. If
database programming is your chosen endeavor, this publication along with
downloadable product files will eventually make you a rock star. As with all
tools this book will not teach you everything you need to know about
ADO.NET, but it will teach you the proper skills to advance, along with a
programmer’s natural curiosity to learn more success is not too far away. |
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