No comments about The Art of Unit Testing: with Examples in .NET.

5 comments about Programming MapPoint in .NET (Programming).

1. This is an excellent book on MapPoint that covers everything from architecture through advanced usage. The examples are solid, and the problems that the author chooses to solve are right on target. Not only does it give useful technical examples, it also provides inspiration for how you can use MapPoint throughout your product.
   
   This is a solid piece of work.



2. MapPoint by Microsoft (who else) is an outstanding tool to be able to use all types of geographic/demographic data in a myriad of different ways. Before the book 'Programming MapPoint in .NET' there weren't any good resources out there on the market for learning how to use this amazing bit of code, but now that has all changed. With this text you will quickly learn the ins and outs of MapPoint, from being able to generate maps in your own application to talking to MapPoint web services to be able to output driving directions, demographic data... whatever you can think of!!!
   
   It's quite clear that MapPoint is a tool that will be growing every day, and with the importance of up to date geographic data, it's a niche that Microsoft was smart to get into. My only "complaint" about this book is that it seems a little light in the source material (API calls, examples and such), but I don't think this is any fault of the author or the programmers. Simply MapPoint is still a fairly new tool and it will take time to document and create examples for all the cool stuff that this application can do. If you use MapPoint, you would be wise to pick up this book and read it cover to cover.
   
   **** RECOMMENDED



3. As a mapppoint developer , I spend most time to programming the function of the application. The book does give some samplese , but most of them are over complexed, and the if you read the source code , you will found that the Author , Cthota, didn't put all the dataset in the download zip file , which is a major regret.



4. OK, that's relatively easy to say since there aren't a whole lot of them. So why did I give Chandu Thota's book five stars?
   
   Because of both what is included and what isn't:
   
   - Breadth of coverage. The author manages to cover every single Microsoft mapping technology (of interest to the programmer), including the CD-based MapPoint 2004, the Location Server, the Web Service, and the new Virtual Earth control, and do so well.
   
   - Concise code snippets. They are plentiful, well explained, and never longer than a page or so. All of those I tried _did_ work.
   
   - No marketing fluff. Although Chandu Thota works for Microsoft, we don't see any of the "product brochure" type of language that maybe convinces execs but fails to impress developers.
   
   - Focus. The author assumes that we can program, know C#, and have at least a basic grasp of maps and such things as lat/lon, and spares us lengthy introductions on these subjects.



5. Do you want to develop a location-based application? If you do, then this book is for you! Author Chandu Thota, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that provides an integrated set of products, servers, and services that helps enterprises improve their customers' experience by applying mapping and location.
   
   Thota, begins by introducing the MapPoint suite of products and technologies, setting the stage by discussing the basics of each technology and usage scenarios. Then, the author covers programming with the MapPoint 2004 ActiveX control and MapPoint 2004 object model for rendering maps, finding places and addresses, and calculating routes. Next, he covers dealing with business data, rendering data maps, and adding thematic shapes using geographic data. The author then covers integration with GPS for obtaining real-time location and extending MapPoint capabilities by writing add-ins. He continues by introducing the basics of programming with MapPoint Web Service. Then, the author shows you how to create applications using the Find APIs of the MapPoint Web Service, including techniques for finding places, addresses, and nearby points of interest. Next, he covers programming with the Route APIs, such as calculating routes and getting driving directions. The author then covers programming with the Render APIs available with MapPoint Web Service, including rendering maps, routes, LineDrive maps, and polygons. He continues by covering the basics of programming with Microsoft Location Server and deployment scenarios. Finally, he covers programming with the Location Server Web Service to get real-time location using mobile phones.
   
   This most excellent book provides a jump-start for working with the preceding technologies, with in-depth discussions about the core concepts and sample code provided in C#. More importantly, this book covers the most common application development scenarios with the MapPoint platform.

No comments about Beginning C# 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

5 comments about Mastering Visual C# .NET.

1. Overall, I'd say this a great book for learning C#. Prior to reading the book I had knowledge of C++ fundamentals. For the most part, I didn't have any issues digesting most of the material in the book. Although, I will say that I didn't catch on to Mike Gunderloy's writing style quiete easily. I could tell something was different in the quality of the writing later on in the book and then realized (from the examples) it was Mike's writing. Maybe cause his topics were a bit more advanced. Knowing more now, I look back at it all and say its a good book to learn from scratch and a useful reference later on.



2. As mentioned in the title of my review, this book is without a doubt the best general instruction (how-to) and reference book on Visual C# .NET that I have found anywhere. The topics are very clearly explained, the code snippets are concise enough that you aren't wading through a single project that grows as the chapters progress.
   
   Instead, the author begins with an into to C#, and starts with the basics. I am only half-way through the book and have been very pleased with the content, its presentation, and the manner in which the author communicates.



3. As the title says, this book may be the best way to jump to C# from another language. I knew a lot of VB6, but I found it slow and cumbersome, so I bought this book. This book quickly shows you how C# works. There no stupid humour or blabbering, it gets straight to the point and teaches you C# step by step.
   
   It has extremely many code samples and it's a bit boring to read, but it's the fastest way to learn C#.



4. This book is the best programming book i've ever read. The layout and examples are easy for me to understand. It shows short example followed by explainations why such & such should be then shows the fully coded example. For me, i like that especially the explainations which i did not get to understand from other books. I suppose this book is not for veteran programmer because you can just browse throught the Part1 which i think it's for beginners. Overall, it's 5 star.



5. This book covers quite a bit of material but not sufficient enough in any area to bring a person to mastery level in Visual C# as it's name implies. The book lacks in three main areas: depth, consistency & challenge. It covers the basics very well for C# console applications but does not cover much of the "visual" aspects of Visual C# as it focuses almost entirely on console applications and the SDK version of the compiler. ie: It shows how to create and use an event for a console application but I had to do a web search for examples how to create and use Windows forms events.
   It lacks in consistency where the authors have admittedly shortcutted much of the example code, it is difficult to find an example of well written code in one place. ie: constructors are a vital part of class building but most examples do not show constructors or access properties such as set and get but instead make fields public to save time.
   The book also lacks in providing a challenge for the readers. If you are trying to learn to speak a new language you learn faster and better if you talk as well as listen. The book provides alot of poorly written code and does not challenge the reader with problems to solve programmatically.

1 comments about Professional Development with Web APIs : Google, eBay, Amazon.com, MapPoint, FedEx.

1. I bought this book for the Amazon.com web services section. While the information she provided was interesting, it was out of date. She talks about the Amazon.com Product ID and Amazon now uses an Access Id and Secret Access Id.
   
   Didn't look at the other Google, eBay, PayPal, etc. services

5 comments about Professional C# (Programmer to Programmer).

1. When this book first come out, there were NO good books on C# and the .NET framework, therefore I was glad I brought it as it is not the worse book I have read. However there are now lot better books on the market.
   
   It is what you would expect from a book that was written by a LOT of different people in a very short length of time before anyone had any real file experience of the .NET platform.



2. This book did have understandable information and was a help to me when I first got it. However, it is way too long (and sometimes using more words than necessary to explain a thing can make it harder to understand.) Also, some of the things it said just aren't quite correct.



3. I really feel that this book is under rated, it's a great book because it provides an enormous amount of content. I had the C# Beginning book by Karli Watson, one of the co-authors of this book, and even that book had an incredible amount of content in it. However, it really didn't have some of the things like multi-threading, regular expressions, delegates, event handling (callbacks), deadlocks, reflections, generics, concurrency, and such that I wanted to learn. These weren't easy concepts, and I couldn't find a tutorial that could enlighten me on these topics. So those are why this book completes the circle for me.
   
   
   The only downside about this book is that the writing is actually not too friendly --- at least for me it isn't. Much like the earlier book, C# Beginner's it will not be something to read if you don't have a good incentive or a motivation. If you are a strolling mind, looking just to advance casually in C# get "CLR via C#, Second Edition (Paperback)" by Jeffrey Richter. His book provides an incredible amount of insight on C# and a lot of the important content this book has to offer, but in a much better writing style. I almost regretted getting this book over that one, but then I realized that Jeff's book didn't mention Regular Expression. Anyway, both books are very great for advancing with C#.
   
   
   Another thing that I would like to address is that this book DOES start from bottom to top in terms of syntax; but, not so much in terms of theory. So you can learn C# language from bottom to top if you've already advanced to an OOP level in another language with this book. A lot of people underestimate the content in this book just because it goes over the fundamentals, that is DEAD WRONG... DO NOT underestimate the content in this book.........
   
   In conlusion, I would say:
   - Get this book if you have an direct incentive to learn something; or, if you intend to seriously use the contents within for a project.
   
   - Get Jeffrey Richter's book, "CLR via C#, Second Edition" if you're just trying to probe for knowledge and insight on C#. His book provides great insight C# and covers all the important contents C# has to offer.



4. I was disappointed for several reasons, especially since this book is labeled as being part of the "Programmer to Programmer" series:
   
   1> Overly long with trite examples covering up the real essence. They often take several pages to convey an idea which, assuming the reader is an experienced programmer, should only take a few sentences.
   
   2> That this is a collective effort shows. Some chapters are half-way decent, others are rather poor.
   
   3> No help for the programmer on how to leverage existing code in C# .NET modules.
   
   4> Very little on how things work, or why they are the way they are. This makes remembering the quirks of the language / framework rather difficult.



5. I am fine with the book's overview of C#, but quite disgruntled with its treatment of .NET details. I consulted the tome on three issues - database access, Windows Forms, and file read/writes - and in each case came away with no answers to a few basic, bread-and-butter questions. (If I had to rate coverage of the three topics, the grades would be B-, F and C). There has to be a better book.

No comments about Head First C# Code Magnet Kit (Head First).

5 comments about Beginning C# 2005 Databases: From Novice to Professional.

1. The author really explains in detail the in's and out's of dealing with databases from the C# perpective. Not only those he provides the same code which many books do, But he explains in detail what is happening behind the scene. He provides excellent examples of parallel access to the same data source through ADO.net, OleDB, and the old ODBC connections.



2. I got this book a few weeks ago. I try to jump start my leaning process of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005.
   
   In fact, this book is a really good one. This book begins with step-by-step how to set up C# programming and database environment. I like this installation guide since I want to experiment with the exercises in this book and I want to do it right the first time. This book covers fundamental concepts of databases and related data access ADO.Net technology. The author explains very well the following concepts, connections, commands, data readers, data adapters, and data sets, etc. The diagrams in the book really help to understand the relationship between the concepts mentioned above. In addition, the author also includes topics such as transaction, xml, working with text and binary data, and LINQ.
   
   I do think the author should include the topic of CLR integration with SQL Server 2005. CLR integration allows you to create database objects including stored procedures, triggers, user-defined functions, UDTs, and aggregates, in ANY .Net languages. CLR provides much more power and flexibility than T-SQL. In addition, CLR integration has other great benefits too.
   
   Bottom line. It is a very good introductory book about ADO.Net, SQL, and C#. It is a good reference book for experienced professionals.



3. [...]In fact it gives a very clear and simple introduction to the very basics of database structure and querying with C#, but it doesn't go beyond that. It seems strange for a 500+ pages text , but most of the space is devoted to long explanations and especially to reprinting the same code over and over. What irritates me is also code formatting. In a mixed attempt to both produce more filler and to indulge on his love for encient poetry and verses the author uses this kind of formatting for basically any string he uses:
   // Set up connection string
   string connString = @"
   server = (local)\MYSERVER;
   integrated security = true;
   database = northwind
   ";
   // Set up query string
   string sql = @"
   select
   *
   from
   employees
   ";
   Now, is it really necessary to take 6 or 7 lines for a simple select query or a connection string? No if you are not writing the odissey I think.
   Compare for example the extremey compact style of David Sceppa in "[...]Core Reference" where he ha sthe opposite problems of crunching a lot of material in a single book.
   In conclusion, if you are really, really an absolute beginner who has no idea of what a table or a query is, and has never used any programming language to query a database, this book can still be useful notwithstanding the misleading title. [...]



4. Is has been awhile since I programmed with databases, so I was looking for a book to help me both refresh and advance my skill set. James Huddleston's "Beginning C# 2005 Databases, From Novice to Professional" is such a book. Having some former experience with DBs, the first 9 chapters are both a quick read and refresher. The "How It Works" were useful and very clear. The later chapters, especially 13 (Exceptions), 15 (Events), and 17 (XML) in relation to C#, were helpful. The last chapter offers a look into the future with LINQ. I would like to thank Mr. Huddleston for writing this book.



5. A good introduction to beginning databases in SQL Server Express edition. Some questions I had did go unanswered. Why would a desktop application use SQL Server express over say Microsoft Access? Are there concurrency issues with a team using SQL Server Express edition?
   
   Also, I would have liked if the author explained the connection string builders. I knew most of what the author was saying because I use OLEDB mostly, but wanted to get up to speed on SQL Server. I didn't learn much, however, if a beginner (i.e., someone who never used DataReaders, DataAdapters, etc..) got a hold of this I think it would be very useful.

5 comments about Mastering ASP.Net with Visual C#.

1. This is the best asp.net with c# book for beginner and experienced web developer among the 4 similar books I bought 4 momths ago, this is the only one I read trough and do it from first to last chapter. Thanks, Russell.



2. I have 3 other Mastering books and they are all great. This one is not in that category. Mastering C#, Mastering VB.NET and Mastering Cool Fusion 5.0 are all very good books. This author seems like a real C#/ASP.NET Guru but has no ability to convey that knowledge in a clear concise way. It seems to me like everything is just dumped on the pages instead of being built up step by step. This book might be good if you are already very good at ASP.NET and want to gleam some more insight into some of the deeper workings of ASP.NET, but definitely NOT as a beginner/intermediate book. I consider ASP.NET Unleashed a masterpiece compared to this book. After chapter 6, I just gave up and am going to purchase another ASP.NET C# book to meet my needs.



3. I've been trying to use this book as my primary reference for ASP.NET for a couple of months now, and I'm to the point where I'm going to go out and buy another book.

   This book could be dramatically improved if it had been under the kind eye of rigorous editor, one that would have pulled all the spurious soapboxing and helped refocus the book on addressing topics the author is not favorable towards.

   A couple of examples:

   1) Paragraphs of prose dedicated to a lengthy explanation as to why usernames and passwords are obsolete, bordering on arrogance. Finally, begrudgingly, getting to the meat of what I need to know: how to do authenticated login. I wouldn't mind so much if the author was providing relevant insight into the directions that the industry is taking, but his proposition that smart cards and biometrics will overtake passwords is the same old rhetoric expounded over the last decade... which has not come to pass.

   2) An attitude of MS Access = Bad. Yes, SQL is one of the stonger solutions for the back end, and sure, you should use MSDE if you can't do SQL, but I have a client that needs it to be MS Access. To completely short-change Access is to write yourself out of a very real segement of the market.

   In essence, I think this book suffers by actively distancing itself from real-world issues. A more pragmatic, non-preaching approach would have been better, one that focussed on what *I* need, not what the author feels compelled to tell me about.

   Ignoring the soapboxes, the rest of the book is pretty good. The author obviously knows his ASP.NET. I'll keep this book around as a secondary reference, but I'm out hunting for a new primary reference.

   I generally dislike writing reviews like this, but I dropped ... this book (a local Borders) and I would really have liked to have seen a review like this before I made that decision.




4. This book tends to become scattered, and the author seems to ramble at times. I was expecting more simple explanation by example, but what examples there were seemed to contain large amounts of code that belonged in an entirely different topic. I tended to notice alot of "I'm showing you this, but I'm not going to say anything about it in this book."...

   This is not to say that there is no useful information in this book, but it is difficult and tiring to get to. The content seems to drift towards generalized advice in many areas, rather than actual instruction.

   I would say that this book would be worth owning only if you have a good core of ASP.net knowledge, and want a book that will increase the dsetail of your knowledge in a wandering manner.




5. After many tries, I've officially given up reading this book at Chapter 17 of this 23 chapter book. This book definetely doesn't belong in the "mastering" series of sybex. I've followed along many books of this series, from SQL, to VB to Server 2003, etc, but this one just doesn't measure up to the quality of the others. Here are the problems with this book:

   1. Too many samples, but not enough explanations. I'll be happy if the author presents complicated topics, as long as he explains them thouroughly. But not here, all you get, is one long-winded code after another, but only a sentense or two to explain what the heck is going on in the code. So usually as I read a chapter, I would counsult another book, so I can have some clue what was just covered. Not an ideal learning experience.
   2. Too boring. The author doesn't inject one iota of humor, or any kind of real world examples, or applications for his codes. The explanations are terse and dry, and felt as if, the author doesn't really care, or care to know, that at the other end, there's another person reading this.

No comments about Professional ASP.NET MVC.