Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0: Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .Net

This is a really great book. Like most technical books it covers a lot of ground: 1. Shows through example how data binding works in windows: how to use the Binding class to bind a property on a control to a property on an object; how the new .NET 2.0 BindingSource class is used and why it was created; and a clear explanation of the currency manager and how the BindingSource class replaces it. I didn't even know you could bind arbitrary properties on an object to a property on a control. This book showed me how to do it. Too Cool! 2. A detailed explanation of how to use and extend the DataGridView. It is the best one stop shopping treatment of the DataGridView I have seen anywhere. 3. How to implement custom data-bound controls in windows forms. 4. A detailed explanation of the Data-Binding interfaces, including how to bind the DataGridView to something other then a DataTable. 5. And so much more... I consider this one of the few .NET books worth reading. One big plus about this book is after the first couple of chapters you can skip around and read what you need to get your job done. Using the information from this book I was able to create an adapter to our custom business object and display the data in a data grid view. Using the data grid view the user can perform the standard CRUD (create, read, update, and delete operations) on the data. This provides a nice addition to our graphical rendering. Big thanks to the author. I couldn't of done it without this book.

This book lived up to and surpassed my expectations. Going into this book, I had very little knowledge of how to implement data binding support for my custom entity classes. After reading this book, particularly the custom entity object chapter, I was able to implement very rich data binding support (filters, sorting, error provider support, etc.) to my custom classes. Of course, all of the various pieces of information on how to implement this support is out there in MSDN or in web articles here and there. But it was well worth the price of the book to have all of these pieces put together in this cohesive text. I thought that the book started off a bit slow, but after the 2nd or 3rd chapter, it quickly picked up with the technical details and provided everything that I needed to know. I would highly recommend this book if you need to implement data binding support yourself.

What's really cool (and missing in all the reviews and sample chapter) is how the author actually does things like they would be done in a real project. For instance, his typed dataset definition is in a dll, not lumped into the main project. He seems to make a continual effort to keep things loosely coupled and logically separated, just like seasoned programmers do. His assumption seems to be that the reader wants to learn the right way to do things, rather than just getting a surface level understanding of major concepts. It is blatantly obvious that while the author is an excellent writer, that he got his start as an excellent developer (unlike many authors, who only code so that they can write a book about it). By the time I got 100 pages into the book, I felt like I had gotten my money's worth. The book is very informative, and is not full of filler material like so many others. This is hands-down the most clear and helpful book on .NET I've read to date.

This book is a one stop shop for all your data binding needs. It is very thorough and well written. It thoroughly covers every aspect to data binding and then cover its specific use in ASP.NET, Windows Forms, WinFX, and ADO.NET with 4 appendixes. The only downside to it is that it alludes to smart client development in the title. The only part of smart client it covers is the data binding on the UI. It doesn't cover the entire smart client gamut, like data storage, communication, or architecture in context to smart client applications.

This book is about so much more than data binding. I'm not sure why they titled it this way. The book is really about forms from start to finish, including what is new in the 2.0 framework. It's an excellent work on proper forms programming and data flow. I highly recommend this book for anyone doing a lot of Windows forms work.