Essential ADO.NET (DevelopMentor)

Aimed at professional developers, Essential ADO.NET is a detailed guide to the database API in Microsoft’s.NET Framework. Despite its similar name, ADO is radically different from its predecessors on the Windows platform, ADO and DAO. Two key differences are that it offers a disconnected model, and is deeply integrated with XML. In the face of such fundamental changes, a book like this one is near-essential for developers who need to program databases in.NET.

After a brief overview of the background to ADO. NET, the author explains the basics, covering connections, data providers, the DataSet object and XML APIs. Then comes a chapter looking at streaming data access, which how you apply a connected model to ADO.NET. The disconnected model comes next, drilling down into the DataSet class, which is a powerful means of caching data locally. The key topics of synchronisation and data binding each get a chapter. After that comes a deeper investigation of XML, including an explanation of DiffGrams which store data edits, and how to use typed datasets for more robust code. A strong chapter on data providers unwraps the heart of ADO.NET, showing what is involved in writing your own custom provider. Finally, there is a useful section on migration issues, with practical tips and orientation help for developers coming from ADO or ODBC.

The author’s deep technical knowledge and long experience of database development shows throughout, resulting in an outstanding resource for ADO.NET programmers.--Tim Anderson