ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) programming from LearningVB.net

VB 2008 | ASP Programming
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Microsoft Office
VB.NET & ADO (ActiveX Data Objects)

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VB.NET & ASP

Murach's ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with VB 2008
By:Anne Boehm
All the Murach books are absolutely terrific - we highly recommend anything by this publisher. Here's what this book has that's important:

In section 1, you'll get a basic introduction to databases, SQL, and ADO.NET. If you already have ADO.NET experience, you can skip ahead.
In section 2, you'll quickly be prototyping database applications using Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools like data sources.
In section 3, you'll learn how to build 3-layer applications the ways the pros do, with presentation, business, and database classes. This is where you'll get into ADO.NET coding to create your own database classes.
Section 4 covers LINQ (Language-Integrated Query), a .NET 3.5 feature that lets you handle all types of data using a query language that's integrated into Visual Basic and that saves you a lot of ADO.NET coding. That means you'll learn how to:
- Use LINQ to DataSet to query the data in typed or untyped datasets.
- Use LINQ to SQL, which allows you to generate an object model from the objects in a SQL Server database that can then be used to access and update the database data...a feature that offers you some of the same benefits as the Entity Framework.
- Use LINQ to XML to manipulate XML data much more easily than you can using the Document Object Model.
- Use LINQ data source controls with web applications.
In section 5, you'll learn to work with the ADO.NET Entity Framework...another way to let .NET generate the code you need and do more of the work for you. Using this feature, you create an Entity Data Model that defines a conceptual model for the business objects used by an application, a storage model for the objects in a database, and mappings that relate the two. Then:
You can use LINQ or a special form of SQL to retrieve data into the business objects.
You can work with the business objects and save changes to the database using generated code.
You can use Entity data source controls with web applications.