software design

There are so many books about .NET now, so it's very difficult to make a right choice. You can't go wrong with this one - it provides very systematic coverage of .NET database programming and guide you through DOs and DONTs of it.
This was my second ADO.NET book. After I read (and in fact reviewed) an excellent Bob Beauchemin's "Essential ADO.NET", I thought I wouldn't need another ADO.NET book. But actually I did. There are plenty of ways to solve a database task using .NET, and Shawn Wildermuth carefully guides you through alternatives, not only identifying the best approach but also explaining his reasoning. Here is a brief example: data scalability (chapter 11). Shawn explains different caching scenarios (per user, per application, per server), its drawbacks, discusses how to scale out a DataSet, and if you should duplication or segmentation. Then he gives the following advices (again, with explanations):
1. Use DataSet schema
2. User typed DataSets to create business rule layers
3. Reduce roundtrips to the database
4. Cache data early and often
5. Use the DataReader
6. Use connection factories
7. Do not hard code connection strings
This is just one example of in how this book can help .NET database developer. It helped to get cleaner understanding of .NET database interfaces and its best use.

I found this book was very easy to read. The examples in the book are very easy to understand and use as a reference. The book explained very good information about ADO.NET concept and all the aspects of it. I have already started to use this book at work for a quick reference. I liked the chapter 9 "ADO.NET and XML" the most.

From the beginning of the book in chapter 1 it was easy to understand the ADO.NET concept. This chapter provided a very good understanding of how ADO.NET works and how technology of data access evolved into ADO.NET. Chapters 2 and 3 provided good explanations and examples of getting connected to the database and issuing SQL commands. Chapter 3 also provided good information and examples on how the result of the SQL commands. Chapter 4 gave very good insight on the DataReader and how to use most of its functionality.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 were all about the Datasets, how to construct datasets, worth with datasets, and a new programming model the Typed Datasets. Chapter 8 provided a good explanation with excellent examples on how to update the Database and how to manage concurrency whether the Dataset is connected or disconnected. Chapter 9 explained the relationship between ADO.NET and XML. It described how well XML and ADO.NET are integrated. Chapter 10 discusses DataBinding, something I don't normally do. However, the examples were very good. Lastly chapter 11 gave some very well thought out design suggestions. --Review by Annie W.

Even though I am a VB/VB.NET developer and this book uses all C# examples, I found it to be extremely informative and packed with useful information. The concepts are explained in detail, but the author has written in such a clear and lucid style, that they are easy to grasp. If only all computer books were writen as well as this one! If you have been trying to get a firm understanding of ADO.NET, this is the book for you.