Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 Databases: From Novice to Professional

Rating:
Summary: Great DB help for beginners
Review: I have traditionally called myself a Web Designer, meaning that I developed websites in html and some occasional dhmtl. The sites were static in that the pages are not database driven. Except for size, the sites could forever remain in this fashion. They are mostly informational sites, where the basic information does not change, such as a church site or a religious ministry / teaching site.

Size, of course, becomes a major factor. As minor changes or design changes are made, how does one integrate these changes across several hundred pages? This is not a unique issue, just an issue related to these type of sites.

The answer, of course, is to move to a limited number of design pages while moving the content to the database. Most of those who view themselves as web developers (that is those with a programming background) would find this conclusion fairly obvious.

In my situation, the matter was more complicated because one site would ultimately be a PHP / mySQL site while others would be ASP.NET / MS SQL powered. While some might argue for moving all of the sites to one or the other, I had no choice on the PHP site and my personal preference (at least on the front end) was to use ASP.NET. So, off I went in search of instructional materials.

In the midst of this search, I was blessed by Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 Databases. I have found this book to be of major assistance and help because its sole focus in life is to teach the basics of the database side of the problem. While the work focuses on ASP.NET as the programming language, the focus is on the use of the databases.

There is no sole focus on MS SQL, so the information becomes very portable to all programming languages. Most of the other works I encountered desire to teach the programming language first, then, or side-by-side, teach the database usage. In Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 Databases has the benefit of learning about database usage without attempting to focus on both programming and databases at the same time.

The chapters are well organized and easy to read, while the examples are portable to other situations and make actual application easier to undertake. The real world case study (an HTML Reference system) is a pleasant change of pace from the other works, most of which want to delve into content management or yahoo portals.

This is a well written, well thought out work that makes a great addition to one's reference and learning library, especially if one closer to the novice side of the scale.


Rating:
Summary: Good enough - but leaves out some critical areas
Review: One of the first books I bought as a classic ASP developer was the former Wrox's "Beginning ASP Databases", which greatly helped me understand the role, relationship and relevance of database systems in modern web applications. I attacked that title with reckless abandon and limited foundation, acquiring a ton of knowledge. It was with this same fervor that I launched into APress' "Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 Databases" - perhaps my over-exuberance, coupled with the fact that I know a lot more now than I did then, led to slight disappointment with this title.

Don't get me wrong, overall this is a great piece of work, and what it does cover it covers very well. But it did leave out some critical areas that one should know as an ASP.NET developer.

I give high marks for the book's breadth of examples with a variety of data stores, such as MSDE, Access, and MySQL, as well as Excel spreadsheets and CSV files. Curiously though, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and XML data sources were left out - I assume because MSDE so closely resembles SQL Server such would be redundant; and arguably describing XML is too tough to succinctly crunch into three paragraphs and then provide a working example.

The scaled choice of database platforms, highlighted by the fact that ASP.NET Web Matrix is featured exclusively as the IDE of choice, leads me to believe that the book's intended audience would be the migratory developer or the first-time ASP.NET coder without access to enterprise-level resources. This is cool, and necessary in today's market, as too many books these days assume a Visual Studio .NET/SQL Server/Windows 2000 Server setup, which obfuscates the hobbyist. The only caveat is that the book's code samples are so married to Web Matrix that the newbie programmer will be lost without it.

The book's case studies are greatly appreciated, and best practices in single-page coding and application design are enforced throughout. The authors make great use of Five Normal Forms (FNF) in the sample projects. The chapter on stored procedures is likewise great, as is the discussion on error handling, and introductory devs will also much from the samples dealing with transactions.

Unfortunately, the phrase "...will not be covered further in this book..." is uttered on too many occasions for topics this I feel are critical knowledge for an ASP.NET developer of any level. Examples of these are largely skipping many of the important members within the System.Data.SqlCommand class (notably the ExecuteXmlReader() method), and only mentioning the SQL GROUP BY and HAVING clauses, without an exhibition of their use in a query. These clauses are critical learning for database programming, and certainly warrant at least a brief example. Tragically, they were mentioned only and then discarded without exhibiting what they do. This was disappointing.

I also didn't see anything about using the SqlCommandBuilder within the text, which is a great topic for beginners, since it's one of the "ignorance is bliss" features of ADO.NET, doing all the work for you behind the scenes, and is a great way to learn SQL syntax. It's therefore the perfect candidate for this book's target audience. I felt this to be an odd omission, given the fact that the DataSet.Update() method was mentioned. For the same reasons, I was offset by the fact that concurrency was left out (in the .NET world, a topic of debatable complexity - some see it as critical learning, others think it's too far advanced for a beginning book).

Nonetheless, the authors both speak clear and concise about the subject matter, all samples feature code that's simple, consistent and non-intimidating, and the use of graphics and illustrations effectively reinforces the concepts. This book makes a great learning tool for a classroom environment, if not a helpful guide for a professional web shop. This book gives you a look at the options available to you and will get you started and give you the tools to get far enough - but doesn't get you all the way there.

Rating:
Summary: A full solution
Review: The book is the functional equivalent of the many out there discussing using J2EE to build a dynamical website that is hooked to SQL databases. Foggon and Maharry show how if you are in the Microsoft .NET world, you can do likewise. They give a quick summary of earlier Microsoft efforts, like COM, Data Access Objects and Remote Data Objects. And how ADO 2.0 replaced the latter 2, and in turn is superceded by ADO.NET. The entire book is a not too subtle encouragement to migrate to ASP.NET and C#.

There are solid technical explanations of why it is advantageous to do so. Like the relative ease of hooking to a back end SQL Server database, using high level classes like DataSet to pull stuff from the database, with a minimal knowledge of SQL needed. Then they show how the latest ASP can use this data to make dynamic HTML pages. Much like JSP and Java servlets.

There is even a section on designing a database. Raising issues like normalisation and first and second normal forms. Though if this is new to you, then consider consulting a dedicated book on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Good introductory C# web book, bad title
Review: This is good book, but I don't think you will get what you want if you go from just the title alone. The is book is about database drive web applications using C#. There are two whole chapters on the front end ASP.NET layer using web controls and C#. Not that this is bad, mind you. The text is well written, the organization is fine, the graphics and illustrations are well done.

The book starts with an analysis of the architecture of an ASP.NET data-driven web application. It then goes into hooking up your pages to a database server, running commands on the server, and getting data from the server onto pages and editing it. Stored procedures are also covered.

Part three of the book was the best part for me. It starts with some practical advice about web application design that will save you a lot of time and frustration. It concludes with a case study that illustrates the real world use of what you have learned in all of the preceding chapters.

This is an excellent walkthrough of the basics of ASP.NET. If you are looking for an introductory material then you should definitely consider this book.