Murach's VB.NET Database Programming with ADO.NET 
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Author Anne Prince, Doug Lowe
Publisher Murach
Length 592 pages
vbRad Rating: 5 fingers up. (5 out of 5)
Reviewed by Robert Gelb

Murach's VB.NET Database Programming with ADO.NET is a follow-up/companion piece and a logical continuation to the Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .NET. It still stands on its own, though it assumes some knowledge of VB.NET. However, you don't actually need to have much knowledge of databases at all. From this basic foundation, it teaches you ADO.NET from a to z. Based on this information, it is not difficult to assume that this book caters to the beginner/intermediate crowd. Regardless, the book has tremendous depth to it and is brimming with technical expertise. You'll learn how to do various types of applications, such as web based, desktop apps, front-ends to two & three tier designs and some others as well. You'll learn many sub technologies present in ADO.NET: datasets, bound controls, queries, various wizards present in VB.NET and much, much more. You'll learn how to call and create stored procs, how to bind data to widgets, how to use the controls in an unbound fashion, datasets, etc… It even has a fairly large amount (more than in other ado.net books) devoted to Crystal Reports.

The authors take the time to walk you through the rigors of building web applications. In particularly they focus on the DataGrid control. One of the last chapters contains valuable information on how to manipulate XML within ADO.NET: an important topic if you want to branch out into building more complex, distributed applications.

All this is done using my favorite time-tested approach of paired formatting. That means that one side of the open book contains theory and the other side has images, explanations and implementations. Murach has been using and refining this approach for a while - now it has all come together to create a very readable product.

As far as the readability of the book goes, I liked the absence of the talkative style of writing. In some books, the authors will go on and on with text mildly relevant to the subject. Not here. The book reads very easily, the text is concise and easy to understand. I also like what I would call "summary example" chapters. In these chapters, the authors bring all the lessons of the previous chapter into a simple application, thus cementing the knowledge base.

Overall, the book is excellent, one of the best that a newbie (or even an experienced programmer that's a newbie to .NET) can get. The main strength of this book is how fast you'll get up to speed with these technologies. If you know nothing about .NET and want to learn, I'd recommend that you get this book and the Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .NET as well. They make a great pair.


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