Building Web Solutions with ASP.NET and ADO.NET

Paperback: 379 pages
Publisher: Microsoft Press (February 6, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0735615780
ISBN-13: 978-0735615786
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 4.7 x 1.2 inches







Most Web applications follow a simple "3F" pattern: fetch, format, and forward data to the browser. With this in-depth guide, developers can take their Web design and programming skills to the next level to build more complex Web pages, applications, and services. The book demonstrates the advanced data-access capabilities of ADO.NET and the powerful page-creation capabilities of ASP.NET, plus how to employ code reusability, pagelets, code-behind, server-side controls, and other time-saving techniques.


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If you have not read Dino's articles on ASP Today, or MSDN, you have missed quite a bit. Dino is really a great writer, especially when it comes to data and performance decisions. Who better to write a book on using ADO.NET with ASP.NET.

The whole first third to half of the book deals with binding data to various controls, primarily the data grid. This is a good thing, as the dataGrid control is the one you will use for most of your data reporting. You learn to page, edit and use templates with this wonderful control. The downside here is that the rest of the controls are largely fluffed over in the first chapter. Overall, this is not a bad thing, but a little more content on the repeater (which is by far the most flexible) and the DataList (which is also editable) would have been a nice addition to this work.

In the middle of the book, you get into code reusability. The chapter loses focus at time, but deals with how you include different controls into your page, including custom user controls. From here, you learn about advanced data reporting, which may well be worth the price of the book alone. You head into deeper programatic decisions here. Fortunately, the DataGrid makes most of this a breeze.

The final third of the book (part of section II and all of section III) puts wheels on what you have learned in the first 2/3rds. The chapters in this third deal with disconnected data, web services, interop with COM and exposing data to your ASP.NET applications.

As I have stated, my largest beef with this book is the lack of more examples with the Repeater and DataList. Overall, I cannot be too critical here, as the DataGrid will most likely bare the brunt of your ASP.NET data programming work. It is a deep enough shortcoming to me, however, that I have to deduct 1 star.

A couple more comments:

1. This book is written using C#. If you are a VB.NET developer, you can still use the book for the concepts, but understand the syntax will be different.

2. This is not a beginner's book. While I can see programmer's experience with ADO utilizing this book, esp. if they come from a language that uses braces (Java, JavaScript, C++, etc.), I would not recommend this as a first .NET book for an inexperienced programmer.


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Building Web Applications with ADO.NET and XML Web Services (Gearhead Press–In the Trenches)

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Wiley (September 17, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0471201863
ISBN-13: 978-0471201861
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches







Learn how to build a data-intensive Web application with XML Web services and ADO.NET!
Richard Hundhausen, Steven Borg, Cole Francis, and Kenneth Wilcox have combined their years of expertise in this invaluable resource to teach you how a typical wired business can leverage Web services in B2B commerce. Using a case study, the authors walk you step by step through how to take advantage of new technologies in .NET, such as ADO, ASP, and SOAP, to create XML Web services. They start with a discussion of a Web services provider case study, including the analysis, design, construction, registration, and deployment of the Web service. You'll then learn about the conceptual design of a system and receive an introduction to Object Role Modeling (ORM). Packed with useful information, the chapters also dive into topics such as:

• Database design, covering the implementation of the physical design in Microsoft SQL Server 2000
• Syntax and attributes used to code a Web service, including proper testing techniques
• The benefits of using the Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) framework
• Security-both the traditional mechanisms provided by IIS and new ones provided by ASP.NET
• Web service performance testing and tuning

The companion Web site includes the complete case study application and code used in the book.

From the Back Cover
Learn how to build a data-intensive Web application with XML Web services and ADO.NET!

Richard Hundhausen, Steven Borg, Cole Francis, and Kenneth Wilcox have combined their years of expertise in this invaluable resource to teach you how a typical wired business can leverage Web services in B2B commerce. Using a case study, the authors walk you step by step through how to take advantage of new technologies in .NET, such as ADO, ASP, and SOAP, to create XML Web services. They start with a discussion of a Web services provider case study, including the analysis, design, construction, registration, and deployment of the Web service. You’ll then learn about the conceptual design of a system and receive an introduction to Object Role Modeling (ORM). Packed with useful information, the chapters also dive into topics such as:

• Database design, covering the implementation of the physical design in Microsoft SQL Server 2000
• Syntax and attributes used to code a Web service, including proper testing techniques
• The benefits of using the Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) framework
• Security–both the traditional mechanisms provided by IIS and new ones provided by ASP.NET
• Web service performance testing and tuning

The companion Web site includes the complete case study application and code used in the book.


User Review:


This book has a great, easy-to-read style and the case study actually shows how to use these technologies in real life. It clearly explains how to use ADO.NET and XML to build data-intensive applications. The writers clearly know what they are talking about and have been in the trenches.


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C# Threading Handbook

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Wrox Press (February 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1861008295
ISBN-13: 978-1861008299
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches







This book addresses the fundamental units of Windows and .NET programming - threads. A strong understanding of the role threads play in program execution, how multiple threads can interact in order to make efficient programs, and the pitfalls to beware of when developing multithreaded applications, are all core to a developer's ability to develop effective C# programs. This book will cover how .NET applications are executed, the life cycle of a thread in .NET, how the .NET Framework uses threads, how threads work in an event-driven environment, how we can avoid race conditions and deadlocks, how the activity of multiple threads can be synchronized, and how to debug multithreaded applications. We finish it off by describing the creation of a multithreaded network application.

What is great about this book?

Threads are fundamental to the way GUI and server applications operate; if your code is running in a GUI, then you're already writing code in a threaded environment. An ASP.NET page also runs in a threaded environment. This book aims to cover the tricky issues of threading in .NET, and particularly to do so from the perspective of C# developers. Threading is by nature not easy to grasp, but a necessary step towards mastery of programming for the .NET platform.



User Review:


Some of the most complex problems in commercial programming arise when you use multiple threads in your application. This book deals with the various ways in which you could spawn new threads and create a more responsive application. However, like every experienced programmer knows, that is the easy part. The real difficulty is in making your code thread-safe. This is also known as thread synchronization. This book has excellent coverage of those aspects too.

It, however, assumes that you are familiar with C# and does indeed jump directly to the topic of the book. If you need help with C#, definitely look somewhere else (C# and the .NET platform, 2nd Edition by Andrew Troelsen is a fantastic book for that purpose). I also felt that the book skimps on some of the more detailed areas of .NET multithreading such as Thread Pools and some specialized classes such as AutoResetEvent, ManualResetEvent, etc. However, this in no way reduces the usefulness of this book.

I found it to be a great primer to learning more about these topics, which paved a path for further investigations using MSDN or other web resources.

Whether it is for your day-to-day job, or for an interview, if you are looking for a book that covers .NET threading in detail, you are likely to be satisfied with this book.


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C# Precisely

Paperback: 214 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (October 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262693178
ISBN-13: 978-0262693172
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.8 x 0.7 inches







C# is an object-oriented programming language that is similar to the Java programming language in many respects but more comprehensive and different in most details. This book gives a concise description of C#. It is intended as a guide for readers who know Java and want to learn C# and as a quick reference for anyone who wants to know C# in more detail than that provided by a standard textbook. The final chapter of C# Precisely summarizes the differences between C# and Java.

C# Precisely is one of the first books on C# to cover version 2.0. It presents the entire C# 2.0 programming language, including generics, iterators, and anonymous methods. It excludes most of the extensive Microsoft.NET framework class libraries except threads, input/output, and generic collection classes. The book shows general rules on left-hand pages, with corresponding examples on right-hand pages. All examples are fragments of legal C# programs. The complete, ready-to-run example programs are available at the book's Web site.


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C# Programming Interview Questions, Answers, and Explanations

The Ultimate Reference & Learning Guide for C# Developers! In depth and current overview of common challenges with C# Fluency with C# is essential for a career as a developer, however, a user-friendly and thorough resource can be difficult to locate. From helping you to assess your current skill level to reviewing with the goal of certification, to preparing for an interview, this guide will tell you the details of what you really need to know. Set yourself apart from other candidates and show that you have what it takes to land the job. More than just a rehash of Microsoft documentation and sales presentations, each section is based on project knowledge and experience gained on successful high-profile C# implementations. Key interview and certification topics include: . Language design goals . 3.2 C# 3.0 new language features . Implementations . Code libraries . Language Integrated Query patterns


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LINQ Unleashed: for C#

Paperback: 552 pages
Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (July 24, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0672329832
ISBN-13: 978-0672329838
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches









Microsoft’s highly anticipated LINQ query technology makes it easy to retrieve any information programmatically from any data source, no matter where it comes from or how it’s stored. Using LINQ, developers can query objects, relational databases, XML documents, and ADO.NET datasets--and do it all directly from C# 3.0, leveraging the powerful capabilities of LINQ.



This is a definitive guide to getting real-world results with LINQ, using C# 3.0 and Visual Studio 2008. In LINQ Unleashed, Microsoft MVP Paul Kimmel covers every facet of LINQ programming, showing how LINQ can help you dramatically improve your productivity and build more reliable, maintainable applications.



Kimmel begins by reviewing the state-of-the-art C# programming techniques LINQ uses, including anonymous types, partial methods, and Lambda expressions. Next, using realistic examples and easy-to-adapt sample code, he details the most powerful new LINQ techniques for accessing objects, databases, and XML. You’ll gain a deep and practical understanding of how LINQ works “under the hood”--and learn how to do everything from selecting data through integrating XML with other data models.

• Build efficient LINQ queries to .NET objects, SQL databases, and XML content
• Utilize anonymous types to reduce design time, coding effort, and debugging time
• Automatically generate .NET state machines with the new yield return construct
• Master LINQ query syntax, operators, extension methods, sorting, grouping, aggregate and set operations, and more
• Make the most of select--and use it in the business layer of your n-tier applications
• Query relational data stored in Microsoft SQL Server
• Use nullable types to eliminate unnecessary database access plumbing code
• Use LINQ with ADO.NET 3.0 and Microsoft’s powerful new Entity Framework
• Extract XML data without the hassles or complexity of XPath
• Automatically construct XML from CSV files and other non-XML data
• Query Active Directory by extending LINQ

Introduction 1

Part I Getting Ready for LINQ

1 Programming with Anonymous Types 5

2 Using Compound Type Initialization 29

3 Defining Extension and Partial Methods 61

4 yield return: Using .NET’s State Machine Generator 85

5 Understanding Lambda Expressions and Closures 97

6 Using Standard Query Operators 121

Part II LINQ for Objects

7 Sorting and Grouping Queries 137

8 Using Aggregate Operations 151

9 Performing Set Operations 167

10 Mastering Select and SelectMany 185

11 Joining Query Results 211

12 Querying Outlook and Active Directory 239

Part III LINQ for Data

13 Querying Relational Data with LINQ 265

14 Creating Better Entities and Mapping Inheritance and Aggregation 289

15 Joining Database Tables with LINQ Queries 309

16 Updating Anonymous Relational Data 349

17 Introducing ADO.NET 3.0 and the Entity Framework 383

Part IV LINQ for XML

18 Extracting Data from XML 415

19 Comparing LINQ to XML with Other XML Technologies 437

20 Constructing XML from Non-XML Data 453

21 Emitting XML with the XmlWriter 463

22 Combining XML with Other Data Models 469

23 LINQ to XSD Supports Typed XML Programming 485

Index


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I higly recommend this book. It is easy to read and keeps you interested.
It is the first book that tries to describe the Entity Framework in one of its chapters.
The author gives a thorough description of hundreds of ways to make a select statement. Update, insert, and delete are described in very few paragraphs which seems a little bit thin.


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LINQ Quickly

Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: Packt Publishing (November 16, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1847192548
ISBN-13: 978-1847192547
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.3 inches








This book gets you started with LINQ and shows how it will make your programming life easier by making use of new features from the .NET Framework 3.0. This book is split into seven chapters, each of which is dedicated to presenting a feature of LINQ and its usage in real-life scenarios.

Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a new feature in Visual Studio 2008 that extends its query capabilities, using C# and Visual Basic. Visual Studio 2008 comes with LINQ provider assemblies that enable the use of LINQ with data sources such as in-memory collections, SQL relational databases, ADO.NET Datasets, XML documents, etc.

In Visual Studio 2008, Visual C# and Visual Basic are the languages that implement the LINQ language extensions. LINQ language extensions use the new standard query operators API, which is the query language for any collection that implements IEnumerable.

• LINQ to Objects
• LINQ to XML
• LINQ to SQL
• LINQ to DataSets
• LINQ to XSD

This book introduces the reader to the basic concepts of LINQ, and takes them through using LINQ with an example-driven approach.

This book is for .NET developers who want to find out exactly what LINQ is, what it can do for them, and how to program with LINQ.

This book presumes a sound knowledge of XML, ADO.NET, and .NET data access--No knowledge of LINQ is presumed.


User Review:

The book provides a good overview of LINQ and it's supporting language features, such as anonymous types, implicit typing, object initializers, extension methods, and expressions. It then builds on that introduction to cover the various LINQ implementations, such as LINQ to Objects, LINQ to XML, and LINQ to SQL. A very thorough look at the different Standard Query Operators closes the book.

Also provided are two simple examples that really help highlight the power and flexibility of LINQ. The first example shows how to create a web site that uses LINQ to populate a data grid and some form elements. The other example shows how to use LINQ against the Outlook object model to retrieve the details of an Outlook contact.

One thing that this book mentions very clearly that hasn't been talked about much is that LINQ to SQL is able to make use of not just embedded SQL but also stored procedures and walks the reader through the steps necessary in order to make effective use of LINQ and stored procedures.

While the style of writing in the book was a little hard to follow, the technical content of the book appeared to be both accurate and thorough, taking the most in-depth look at LINQ to XML and then the Standard Query operators.


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LINQ Pocket Reference

Paperback: 172 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; illustrated edition edition (February 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596519249
ISBN-13: 978-0596519247
Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches






explanations to help you learn it quickly. And once you begin to apply LINQ, the book serves as an on-the-job reference when you need immediate reminders.

All the examples in the LINQ Pocket Reference are preloaded into LINQPad, the highly praised utility that lets you work with LINQ interactively. Created by the authors and free to download, LINQPad will not only help you learn LINQ, it will have you thinking in LINQ.

This reference explains:

• LINQ's key concepts, such as deferred execution, iterator chaining, and type inference in lambda expressions
• The differences between local and interpreted queries
• C# 3.0's query syntax in detail-including multiple generators, joining, grouping, query continuations, and more
• Query syntax versus lambda syntax, and mixed syntax queries
• Composition and projection strategies for complex queries
• All of LINQ's 40-plus query operators
• How to write efficient LINQ to SQL queries
• How to build expression trees from scratch
• All of LINQ to XML's types and their advanced use

LINQ promises to be the locus of a thriving ecosystem for many years to come. This small book gives you a huge head start.

"The authors built a tool (LINQPad) that lets you experiment with LINQ interactively in a way that the designers of LINQ themselves don't support, and the tool has all kinds of wonderful features that LINQ, SQL and Regular Expression programmers alike will want to use regularly long after they've read the book." -Chris Sells, Connected Systems Program Manager, Microsoft


User Review:

This book helped LINQ 'click' in my head. Today, I use LINQ a lot-- it's a handy way to process a collection of items, inspect XML, or execute SQL. I use LINQ a lot for processing collections of items for various things, including databinding in WPF or ASP.NET. This book helps me remember little syntactic things here and there. When I first got the book, it was open constantly. Today-- it has taught me well enough that I always feel comfortable using LINQ expressions in my code.


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LINQ for Visual C# 2008

Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1430215801
ISBN-13: 978-1430215806
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches







Every C# programmer needs to learn about LINQ (Language–lIntegrated Query), Microsoft’s breakthrough technology for simplifying and unifying data access from any data source. With LINQ you can write more elegant and flexible code not just to access databases and files but to manipulate data structures and XML.

This book is a short yet comprehensive guide to the major features of LINQ and the significant enhancements introduced with .NET 3.5. There is no better source for getting a head–start on the future of these technologies than this book.

• A clear and comprehensive yet concise introduction to using LINQ in C#
• Covers LINQ to Objects, LINQ to SQL, LINQ to DataSet, and LINQ to XML
• Rich in working examples of LINQ in action
• Ideal for C# programmers at any level

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LINQ for VB 2005

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (February 12, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590598407
ISBN-13: 978-1590598405
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.4 inches







Are you ready for the future of data access in .NET?

At the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005, Microsoft previewed a new technology, Language-Integrated Query (LINQ). It captured a lot of attention because it addressed the fundamental issue of merging object-oriented applications with relational data. The LINQ Project team demonstrated how to use LINQ to query a variety of data sources, such as a SQL Server database, an XML file, and an array, and how to manage the data using an object-oriented approach.

Fabio Ferracchiati has written a comprehensive guide to the three main parts of the LINQ May 2006 CTP: managing in-memory data (LINQ to Objects), accessing relational databases (LINQ to ADO .NET), and manipulating XML documents (LINQ to XML). Each chapter offers many practical examples that you can try yourself with the downloadable source code. Youll quickly learn everything you want and need to know about LINQ by actually using LINQ.

The future of .NET data access is already hereand its a very bright one!


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