Murach’s ADO.NET 2.0 Database Programming with VB 2005

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Murach s ADO.NET 2.0 Database Programming with VB 2005

Murach s ADO.NET 2.0Database Programming with VB 2005 by Anne Boehm (published by Mike Murach& Associates) is a beginner s guide to creating data-connected applicationsfor both the Web and Windows using Visual Studio and Visual Basic. The book s764 pages cover a lot of ground in the areas of data connectivity: datasources, data adapters, parameterized queries, three-tier architectures, etc.However, the book s title is a bit of misnomer. The book really should betitled Using Visual Studio Designers withSQL Express 2005 to Create Visual Basic Applications. The book is verynarrowly focused on a single database platform (SQL Server 2005 Express) andprimarily how to leverage the designers in Visual Studio to connect to andconsume SQL Server data. The information contained in this book, whileaccurate, is simply just too basic for anybody with any experience in creatingdatabase driven .NET applications.

As aforementioned, this book tries to cover the entiregamut of database-driven application design and development and is largelysuccessful in hitting most of it (at least from a topic perspective). The bookis very linear in how it takes the reader from a cursory introduction on such databaseconcepts as foreign keys and referential integrity, through how ADO.NET 2.0connects to and uses these concepts. From there it splits out and devotesmulti-chapter sections to both three-tier Windows applications and Webapplications. One thing to note (and something that was somewhat confusing tome) is that the editors stuck a four-chapter section on Web development in-betweentwo multi-chapter sections involving Windows applications. In both the Web andWindows sections, business cases around vendor maintenance and invoicing areused to illustrate how the data-bound controls specific to each platform couldbe used to create such applications. In the Web sections, special attention isgiven to the use of the grid, details, and form view controls and how to bindthem to both the SQL data source control and the object data source control.However, information on using transactions, typed and untyped data sets, anddata views are exclusively under one of the Windows sections (these topics arebroader than just Windows development and I would have like to have seen themapplied to each).

The book s more advanced chaptersdeal with working with XML data, such as the use of XML data sources,transferring XML data to and from a dataset using diffgrams, and reading andwriting XML using ADO.NET and the XML features of SQL Server 2005. Other topicsin the advanced section include using the server explorer within Visual Studio2005 and using the Crystal Reports package that comes with Visual Studio. Thesesections, which comprised about 60 pages of the book, were a bit out of placegiven the context of the rest of the book, which read more like a case study inbuilding a particular type of application for the Web and Windows (althoughthese chapters were welcome, as they do touch on topics that should beaddressed in a book about database development and .NET).

This book is by no means a reference book to me itreally read more like a textbook. The way that topics were presented was verybeginner-focused in nature. The one thing that struck me time and againthroughout the book was the emphasis placed on the data-oriented designerswithin Visual Studio 2005, such as the table adapter designer and the datasource wizards. The implication was that this is the only or best way ofworking with the data objects in .NET and I would venture that most hard-core developers never use them. In addition, this book never once touches on thetopic of security; I expect a book on database programming to mention protectingagainst SQL injection and other common vulnerabilities. All in all, it was nota bad book, just not very deep from a technical perspective. I noticed onMurach s Web site that there is an instructor worksheet that goes with thisbook, which is exactly how I would position it: as the main textbook of anintroductory course on database development and VB.NET.

Matt Dinovo

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Title: Murach s ADO.NET 2.0 Database Programmingwith VB 2005

Author: AnneBoehm

Publisher: MikeMurach & Associates, Inc.

ISBN:978-1-890774-43-1

Web Site: http://www.murach.com/books/adv2/index.htm

Price: US$52.50

Page Count: 764