Rating: 
Summary: This is really good ADO book
Review: I only have a few months to come up with an architecture for the front end. Personally, I prefer working with powerbuilder better because of their excellent product that works well with databases. I worked with VB 4 years ago and used RDO and DAO a lot. I was not impressed with them at all because you don't have a lot of control over the database issues.
I thought ADO was going to be the same and I did not have a good feeling about it. Having only a few weeks to get me up-to-speed, I thus bought this book. It was a very good decision. This book explains in details about the recordset, command, and parameter objects that you need to know before designing/developing your first app (in my case). My perception on ADO has changed 3 days after I started reading this book, thanks to this book.This book teaches you how from the beginning especially on what methods to adopt when fetching, updating, deleting, or inserting records. You will find out all those chapters on connected/disconnected recordset to be very helpful. In our new app, I am supposed to create a middle-tier and take advantage of connection pooling. This book also has a detail description on how you can go about implementing a three-tier. A beginner may find this book to be a bit challenging since there are a lot of ideas need to be digested. However, for someone who has some ideas on design and need to find out what is the best way to execute it, in this case writing a good vb app, this is the book for you.
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Summary: Awesome book!
Review: I read McManus's Database Access with Visual Basic 6 and it was a great book, well deserved 4 stars! Why 4? because it lacked a lot of information about ADO, multiuser applications, MTS, COM+, 3-tier, etc., etc.. it lacked many of things professional developers talk so much these days, it lacked all the things Mcdonals writes about in his book! Intermediate as well as Advanced users will find this book very, very useful, with a lot of good (and actually working) examples and written with a good sense of humor too! 611 pages that will change your life as a software developer. Not for newbie.
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Summary: Incredible book - Great for new and experienced programmers
Review: I really like this writer, he does not try to overwhelm you with his vast knowledge of programming, and rather he focuses on helping you to understand programming with Visual Basic and ADO. This is a great book, easy to follow and understand.
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Summary: I love this book
Review: I should reveal my conflict of interest here: This book is published by APress and I'm currently writing a book for APress. And there are a couple of good ADO books out there, from other publishers. This one is my favourite. The book covers all of ADO and, more importantly, gives you the author's guidence on how and when to use those features. I learn something new everytime that I pick it up.
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Summary: Thanks Rob, A Book that delivers MORE than it promises
Review: I started reading what looked like a heavy book on ADO, and finished up really understanding how to use ADO in all kinds of applications. I now know about marshaling and MTS transactions, and how ADO was designed to work with these technologies. I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to go beyond typing in code samples. It explained so much more about how to put applications together, and my users are very happy with the improvements to my applications. I now feel like an expert!
Rating: 
Summary: Useful, but somewhat confusing at times
Review: McDonald definitely knows what he is talking about when writing about ADO. Unfortunately, he has difficulty communicating that knowledge to someone who is starting out. His chapters on recordsets are generally quite useful. To set up my connection to the database I was using, however, I had to refer to other sources. His chapter on explicit connections is confusing, with a convoluted style.
His index is also incomplete. For instance, the expression DSN (Data Source Name) is found nowhere in either the index or glossary, despite its importance and use throughout the book. I found that many references to the index simply didn't exist.
If you already have a beginner's grasp of ADO and VB, the book is quite useful. If you're just starting out, however, look for some other source.
Rating:
Summary: Simply AMAZING
Review: Reading "Serious ADO" is an amazing learning experience. You really should have a fairly good knowledge of Visual Basic before diving into this book. As far as content goes, it does not have the typical pages upon pages of code (filler). Rob gets right to the point... teaching hard-core ADO technologies. For each chapter that I read, I really learned how much I did not know. All in all, this book is seriously amazing! I highly recommend it.
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Summary: A Great Learning Experience!
Review: Rob MacDonald is a master at explaining in a structured and fun way. He explains every last concept of ADO programming in the finest detail, without confusing the reader. It's been a long time since I so much enjoyed reading a technical programming book. Technical aspects, quirks and features of ADO is explained thoroughly in a dry, relaxed and witty style. Rob succeeds in drawing the reader's mind away from the technical nature of the subjects covered without sacrificing credibility. Examples are based on a sample database derived from Shakespeare's "Much ADO about nothing" play. This book is well-structured and should be read cover-to-cover. Concepts build naturally on each other as the book progresses. The intent is not to provide a step-by-step quick-fix reference for every problem you could encounter, but rather to teach the reader WHY and HOW these problems should be tackled. Where more than one solution to a problem is possible, the differences and pros and cons of all solutions are shown. Rob convinces, he doesn't prescribe. Tips to increase performance are included throughout the book - a topic that is all-too-often ignored in the Microsoft programming milieu. If you have a proper knowledge about VB and need to learn database programming, I can't recommend a better book.
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Summary: Best ADO Book Available
Review: There are a bunch of VB Database and ADO books out there, but Rob Macdonald's effort stands head and shoulders above them all. Be prepared, though, to work hard; this book presents complex issues as simply as possible, but it's not for the casual skimmer. It attacks ADO in depth ... as the title says, "seriously." The beginning VB programmer will have a heck of a tussle with "Serious ADO", as it assumes full competence in VB programming. It's written so clearly, though, that even the beginner ... if he or she is very determined, and looks up everything that's unfamiliar in some more basic VB book ... will come out of this learning experience a much better VB programmer. If you want to learn VB ADO, this is the book you need.
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Summary: I truly believe this is the most comprehensive ADO book ever
Review: There are plenty of books on ADO, and plenty claim to go into detail. 'Serious ADO' really does take ADO seriously. I have explained how the core ADO features really work, so that you can get the most out of them. I have also exposed the technology behind features like disconnected Recordsets and Data Shaping, as well as newer features such as Records and Streams, and ADOMD. 'Serious ADO' takes tough topics like MTS/COM+ and ADO Events head on - with real examples of how to use them. Finally, 'Serious ADO' will get you using ADO in a way that's in line with the future of ADO - a way that treats ADO as much more than just a means for processing SQL results.
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