Software Architect said
I was pleased with overall quality of this book. By and large this is the most comprehensive LINQ book currently available on the market. The writing style is easy to follow and the material is presented in logical manner. I rate it four instead of five because it follows a trend very common to books written by multiple authors - uneven quality of writing. LINQ to Objects for example is pure please to read, but I wish LINQ to SQL was covered better. Overall this is a solid book and I'd recommed it to any working developer.
Joseph Guadagno said
I think the expression is "don't cry over spilled milk...", well when my son spilled milk on this book I almost cried. Why would you cry over a book you ask? There are many reasons. Not only does the book go into LINQ in depth (I know there is a C# in Depth book) but the authors cover all of the parts of the .NET framework that were created and needed for LINQ to function. In addition, all of the samples provided are both in C# and VB.NET. These samples are not your basic "Hello World" samples but useful reusable code snippets that get the point of the book section across.
The book starts of with an introduction to LINQ and the different versions of LINQ to xxx, more than enough to wet your whistle. The authors then go into the prerequisites of the .NET framework required, generics, anonymous types and lambda expressions. This chapter was so good I read it twice. The third chapter discusses how LINQ is made up. After this, the authors go in depth in describing the different types of LINQ, including LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Objects and LINQ to Amazon with useful examples.
This book will be a reference book on my book shelf. I expect to refer to this book constantly.
Book Worm said
Most of the reviewers have given high marks for this book. No issue with that, as long as the first six chapters of this book are concerned. It gives the best intrduction on subjects such as lambda expression and various Linq syntaxes. But the most important chapters should have been those dealing with Linq in N-tier architecture - chapters 7 and 8. But those were written in such a confusing manner that, at the end of those two chapters, you are left wondering why you spent money and time on this book. It is a pitty that almost all internet articles, including those on MSDN, deal with Linq as if it is an add-on to Microsoft Access programming and show pages and pages of "drag-and-drop and voila it works great!!" approach. I don't think anyone could write a successfull n-tier Linq code with that approach. Although this book goes little further than the drag-and-drop gimmic, it could have avoided so much fluff and concentrated just on what is needed for a real world n-tier programming using Linq. But unfortunately I don't know whether there is any better book treating Linq as a serious enterprise development tool.
GW said
This was one of the best technical books I've ever read. It was easy to follow and understand. The examples were very clear and the section on the new features of VB and C# were wonderful and needed in order to understand the rest of the book.
I was slightly disappointed that most of the examples in the book were printed in C# instead of VB. BUT, I downloaded all the example projects and utilities and those are excellent! ALL of the examples are available in C# and VB. They are correct and a great on-the-go blueprint for my routines.
It was also very nice that they talk about (in easy-to-understand terms) the performance implications of different implementations.
The cover is a bit dorky, but you shouldn't judge a book by its cover!
A great buy for the novice LINQ programmer.
Shawn Wildermuth said
The book covers a lot of topics that emcompass LINQ including LINQ basics, but also LINQ to SQL, LINQ to XML. I like that it starts out with a discussion of the problem and doesn't dive directly into the solution. In addition, I think it teaches the technology without resorting to starting with database applications as the example. Anyone who has heard me talk about LINQ knows that I can't stand that LINQ to SQL is the wrong way to teach it to new people...they didn't fall into that trap.
In addition, I really like that there are lots of good examples and a great index. There was never an example I was looking for that the index didn't help me find. That's becoming rarer in books. I really liked their coverage of LINQ from both the consumer of LINQ and the provider of LINQ. Their discussion of the LINQ to Amazon provider provided quite a lot of good insight into how the inner workings of LINQ are put together.
My only hesitation at completely loving this book is that all the examples are either in C# or VB. This lends the book to feel a bit schizophrenic. I would have preferred a more bloated book where all the example in print were in both languages. This is especially true of LINQ because the language integration of LINQ is very dissimilar between the languages.
Overall, I would recommend the book to anyone trying to learn LINQ as a technology.
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