Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008

I'm an intermediate level C# programmer (I think) and have been using ADO.net with SQL-Server to build a database application for a client. When I read about LINQ earlier this year, it sounded like something too good to be true. I started with a couple of other books, but found practical explanations of getting things to work lacking. I get the impression, the authors are too far advanced and just assume we have fairly expert knowledge of some of the nuts and bolts things that are elementary to them, so they don't explain these things. Joseph Rattz's book does not assume we know how to do a lot of this stuff. Rather he explains in detail, how to get LINQ up and running, and to actually get a query completed. I was able within an hour to run SQL Metal to generate an entity class (basically a map from SQL Server to corresponding data objects), and run some of the example queries in the book. That said, this is not a lightweight book for someone new to programming. It's just that he does an excellent job explaining a complex subject. It gets into advanced topics on LINQ and requires some knowledge of C#. If you plan to use this to work with SQL Server, you should also have some experience with that also. Summing up, there is just something about Mr. Rattz's writing style that makes this book easy to read and understand. I find I'm actually enjoying reading this book, and I certainly can't say that about most technical books I study.

When I first heard someone describe LINQ, I thought "Oh, another ORM... that doesn't sound very exciting". Upon further research I discovered that LINQ is actually quite a bit more than just "another ORM", in fact, I would say it is one of the more interesting things from Microsoft lately. The book Pro LINQ does a very good job of covering this new technology, and it does so in a way that you would expect for a "Professional" level book. For example, I found it immediately appealing that Chapter 1 starts with a code example before ever getting to any regular text. The rest of the book follows suit. There are plenty of explanations, but sometimes seeing the code & result provides the clearest view. The author does a good job of explaining the technology in detail, why it is useful, and very practical tips on how to make the most of it. The book covers using LINQ to query Objects, XML, DataSets and finally SQL. I have used the book as an introduction to the topic, and for that it has done an excellent job. It appears that the book is comprehensive enough to also serve as a working reference book, but I have not personally had the chance to use it as such yet.

This book claims to be about code, code, and then more code. I completely agree with the author's claim, it is code from front to back. The book covers every feature of Linq in great detail, but one of my favorite parts of the book is chapter on the C# 3.0 Language features and other parts of the book that show how to take advantage of the Linq language features in everyday application code. The author goes into great detail in every part of the of the book. The author also has a great companion site that is being updated with the latest new features coming out, like LINQ to XSD. The accompanying code is very usable and well organized. The only thing lacking would not be a legitimate complaint, since the authors claim code level detail and not architectural level guidance, but I will mention it anyway. I would have like to have seen more guidance on architecture and how Linq fits into the big picture. That is not covered, but like I said, they didn't claim to, so I can't ding them. The point of the comment.... 2nd edition ...hint, hint..... If you want to get into the guts of Linq, this book is definitely for you. I highly recommend it for every .NET 3.5 programmer.

This book provides a *very* comprehensive treatment of LINQ. It establishes the background and foundation for LINQ, and then describes in effective detail and with sound examples, the different facilities and uses for LINQ. I heartily recommend this book for anyone getting into the world of LINQ.

I can't believe that this book was degraded, and also was given a star by a reviewer who pretend to know everything about LINQ. This is the best book out there for any serious developer who want to learn about this new technology. the book is well structured and was written in a way that beginners as well as experienced developers can get up to speed very quickly. I'd like to thank the author for doing such a marvelous work on this book.