Pros: This book does a good job of describing ADO and its relationship to web controls. Covers caching, and interopability which I thought was valuable.
Cons: (not really "cons", but maybe some short-comings):
I wished it had more than a half-page section on the caching object along with some examples and real-world scenarios.
I would also have liked VB along with the C# code.
Finally, if the book is going to be about ADO & ASP.NET, then I feel it should have addressed the basics of getting data - creating a connection in .NET, and hooking it up to a sqldatareader. I already knew how to do that, however, other readers may not. They shouldn't have to go to another source to find out.
I couldn't put this book down when I got it yesterday, however, there were times when I found myself thinking "that sounds great.. but HOW do you do that?.. where is the example? What if I don't want to code in C# ?"..
Bottom line, its worth buying. Try to buy it used, and make sure you have a little background in .NET.
If you ever wanted a handsdown, no nonsense approach to ASP.NET then go get this book! It's well worth the money. Dino walks you through most of the major controls e.g Repeaters, DataLists and DataGrids. Particular emphasis is given on how to make use of Databound controls, especially DataGrids.Dino makes learning functionalities like Paging, Editing, ItemCommands, Sorting, plus some extra features thrown in - like the chapter on developing your own super grid a breeze. The super grid that was introduced will surely be the template used by every .NET developer.
A whole segment is dedicated to the intracacies of the DataSets and how to maximize its usage and the relationship between DataAdapters and DataSet. Those of you who are taking 70-305 tests might wanna take this book a look as well. As I've just completed the test and this book helped alot!
As someone who has been developing ASP for awhile this book is indispensable in exposing new techniques as well as breaking old habits that goes with developing on ASP. For example, the usage of StringBuilders, rather than concatenating strings all over your code.
Towards the end, there's some fair bit on WebServices and a final introductory chapter on how to write your own DataAdapters, both these topics by right can be a book in it self. So its definately a bonus.
In summary. 5 stars mate!
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