Mastering Visual Basic .NET Database Programming

I picked up this book thinking that it would help me design ASP.NET systems with a SQL backend, but found even more than I expected! There's two whole chapters dedicated to just XML and it gives you great insight on how to use x/path and x/slt practically. A lot of other books seem to give text book examples and syntax. I can look these up on the web. This book is much better because you get real-life walkthroughs and working projects. It seems to avoid the trap of being a mere reference book.

I am new to the .NET world. This book gave great guidance on knowing when, why, and how to make the switch over from OLE DB and COM. Well worth buying if you want to know how to build systems using the new .NET architecture. This book is great because it doesn't just dwell on syntactical differences, like most .NET books do. Instead, it gives you both conceptual on how to architect a system and practical information on how to implement the system. You understand where you should put your .NET code - I was especially excited to see a chapter on deployment, which often gets overlooked. A lot of books tell you how to build a system, but leave out the part on what you do once it's built. This book covers all the bases. My copy is completely filled with post-it notes.

When I picked up the book, I thought I would just be learning about how to design a database. As a seasoned programmer, I am not interested in information I can grab off the web. I was delighted to find so much un-documented information in this book. Instead of a dry, design your database manual, you get an around the world tour of almost every flavor of technology that surrounds data access. Chapters 10 and 12 are my all-around favorites - X/Path, XSL/T XML and the related technologies. I would like the authors to write a book just on XML alone. Another favorite topic of mine (which was again, very clearly explained): SQL Server access over HTTP. This was great information that I can definitely use in my systems today. A terrific book overall.

Although the title indicates that this is a book purely about database programming, don't let it fool you. This book is filled with much more information than just database programming. You learn how to build ASP.NET applications, work with customized user controls in VB.NET. XML also gets a lot of coverage in this book and you learn, step-by-step how to build a custom XSL stylesheet. The authors walk you through building the template and XPath queries. XPath isn't an easy language, by any means, but the examples step you through from the simple to the complex, giving you indepth information along the way. Another thing that I was really surprised with was the fact that all the examples I've tried so far work. This is really surprising in a programming book, especially one that's written in time to be published right when .NET launched. I'm very impressed with the quality of the code, as well as the way this book is written.

This book is a great way to become more than just a developer - andbecome an architect! Not only do you get practical examples of the code,but the author also steps you through the theory behind why you shoulddo something. Helps you design your systems rather than hack up code. Ifyou are interesting in building any data driven .NET systems, this isthe book for you. Learn everything you needed to know about ADO.NET.