ADO 2.1 Programmer's Reference
by Manohar Kamath
August 4, 1999
At first, you may think this book is a "cheat sheet"
for ADO programming.. well, that's what I thought so. On a closer look, the you will see
the book is more than just quick guide to ADO. It is a comprehensive, structured and
authoritative look at the entire ADO object model and the nuances involved in programming
with ADO.
The first chapter deals with a look at what ADO is, the
alternatives to ADO and the benefits of using it. Also, it goes over examples how you can
use ADO and programming ADO in different languages. The "What's new in ADO 2.1"
section is a quick but easy way to know what 2.1 is all about. This creates a strong
foundation for beginners for reading the rest of the book.
The second chapter is really an overview of ADO and ADOX (ADO
eXtensions) object models. Also included in this chapter is a glance at different OLEDB
providers. The best part is that the book provides the much requested connection string
syntax for a variety of OLEDB providers.
The next few chapters are really the ADO, ADOX and RDS objects
dealt in detail, sometimes devoting the entire chapter to the object. The chapters start
with a thorough understanding of the objects and then move their properties/methods and
explaning them in very clear terms. Each method/property is discussed and the discussions
are interspersed with tips and suggestions on their usage.
The book takes a brief look into new features such as ADO
Multi-dimensional and data shaping. The coverage is brief as these topics can take more
than a couple of sections.
The last part of the book is summary of objects and their
methods, properties and collections. This is the "cheat sheet" part of the book
when you want a quick answer. Also included in this section are ADO constants, ADO error
codes and schemas.
I almost forgot the best part of the book! The chapter before the
book begins its "summary report," it has a section on performance issues. These
issues have hardly been discussed in other books, so it is really welcome feature of the
book. The section talks about performance when using different types of cursors, locks,
cache size and other factors.
Overall, the book has been well-written, and is very useful for
ADO developers of all types of background and experience.
What's good:
The fact that the book is not a mere rehash of Microsoft's ADO
documentation makes it worth reading.
Each object is well discussed with all the fine details
covered.
The discussions are supplemented with practical tips and ideas.
The discussion on performance issues is very useful, especially
to the enterprise developers.
What's not:
I really did not find anything that was an obvious drawback of
the book. I wish there was more coverage on the new features like ADO multidimension and
data shaping. |
