As mentioned in an earlier post, Expert ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Application Design by Apress - Book Review Introduction, Expert ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Application Design showed up on my doorstep the other day so I thought I would review the 3 different sections in the book. Because I have been talking a lot about ADO.NET 2.0 recently, I decided to jump to the last part of the book, Data Access Layer, first and then go back to the other sections later.
Part 3 - Data Access Layer
Part 3 of Expert ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Application Design discusses the Data Access Layer in your ASP.NET distributed applications. It is separated into 3 different chapters, which I have described below.
Chapter 10 - Managed Providers of Data Access
This chapter provides an overview of the following:
This chapter is extremely well written, providing a nice overview of ADO.NET that focuses on best practices and the rational for choosing one solution / technology over another in your applications. It highlights the “important“ improvements in ADO.NET 2.0 that mean something to the intermediate and advanced developer. It packs a lot of best practices and the rational for such practices in a few pages by not wasting a lot of time and space on trivial discussions and reference material. I can't recommend this chapter enough.
Chapter 11 Data Access Layer Services
This chapter provides an overview of the following
This chapter is more of a hodge podge of ideas. I, personally, could have done without the discussion of data sources and the “old“ Enterprise Library Data Access Application Block, but others may enjoy the introduction. The sections on SQL Cache Dependencies is excellent, and the SQL Server 2005 is indeed a survey of the topics just to familiarize yourself with SQL Server 2005.
Chapter 12 - Transactions
This chapter provides an overview of the following
This chapter is only about 15 pages long, but provides a good introduction to the new System.Transactions namespace in ADO.NET 2.0. The new transaction support in ADO.NET 2.0 is a must read for developers inolved with distributed transactions.
Conclusion
Expert ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Application Design Part 3, Data Access Layer, provides a solid overview of using ADO.NET in your data access layer. The writing style is good, and aside from Chapter 11 which is more of a hodge podge of ideas, the chapters flow very well. I enjoyed the focus on best practices and real-world ideas.
One very important thing missing is a chapter putting all of these ideas together to create a data access layer. The book introduces all the parts of a data access layer but misses out on the opportunity to bring these parts together into an actual data access layer that demonstrates them working together in harmony.
Source: David Hayden ( .NET Developer )