Steven said
This is a great book I must say!

First I like how down to earth Carsten Thomsen is, it makes this book a joy to read. A little bit of dry humor is peppered throughout this book and I enjoy that! At first I was a little bit nervous about diving into this book because on the back it says the user level is intermediate-advanced and I felt that I was still in the beginner stages of developing ADO.NET apps. Well, even if you are a beginner (with ADO.NET that is... if you are brand new to programming then you should look for other books tailored for your needs and pick this one up later) but even if you are a beginner then I still recommend picking up this book. Although the book does cover advanced topics, it never seems like it's too much to handle. Thomsen does such a great job at introducing new concepts that before you know it your learning a great deal more then you ever thought!

If you are looking for a book aimed a database programming then look no further!!!

Anonymous said
A bit of an "old" book but still rock solid information presented in an easy to read fashion. I did find a few minor inconsistencies but not enough to deviate from the 5 star rating.

Robert P. Beveridge said
Carsten Thomsen, Database Programming with C# (Apress, 2002)

Now this is a C# book (unlike the last one I reviewed here). Thomsen gets into the nuts and bolts from the get-go and starts the reader developing a real application. He gives us the underlying application logic, explains how it works (and tries to instill good coding practices along the way), all with an eye towards actual development rather than stand-alone sample programs that teach only a very few.

I wish he'd spent more time in the book's final chapter going over some of the code explicitly rather than just referring us to the code in the online zip files, but what's here is pretty fine. *** ½

William G. Ryan said
I'm pretty fanatical over anything relating to database technology as well as .NET. So I'm probably quite biased but I think this book is really great. It's written such that a total beginner could pick it up and get going, but there's a lot of great material intertwined that I think intermediate developers would enjoy it too.

My number one criteria for a book is that it's interesting. I read the whole thing and never got bored even though I was already familiar with much of the material. That's a big plus in my book. The content is good and the examples are practical and well discussed. On the other hand, I think he does a great job of discussing things in proportion to how important they are. Let's face it, twenty examples of using the DataAdapter Configuration wizard is silly and there's a title or two out there that goes down that road. This is what I really enjoyed because he shows you both ways of doing just about everything (using code or doing it with UI tools) and explains the what's and hows.

I've liked every book he's written and this is no exception.

J. Mootz said
The worst computer book I have ever read...I not going to waste my time (or yours) giving countless examples.