Customer Reviews:
 A great LINQ Reference May 11, 2008
William G. Ryan (Atlanta, GA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Before proceeding, I have an admission to make. I have worked with Scott as his technical editor on another book. However my assessment here is as objective as I can be.
I have worked with LINQ for quite a while now, since I came across it in the early stages at the MVP summit a few years ago. In many ways I think it's a very easy subject to learn b/c in many ways, it is so similar to SQL. At the same time, as with anything, true mastery is not easy. Because I also teach a course on LINQ and Entity Framework, I buy every LINQ book that I can find and have seen it covered as a topic in many of the most recent C# books. The whole line of LINQ books that have come out are, in my opinion, very good. And while they all cover essentially the same topics, they all have their own way to approach the subject so I've gained a good bit by examining how each author approaches the subject. I think this book is a solid 4.5 stars - there wasn't 4.5 available but I think it's a lot closer to a five than a 4.
Why do I think that? First off, it's thorough. Apparently another reader doesn't agree with this assesment and decided the book warranted 1 star b/c of it's light treatment [..]. While equality and non-discrimination are laudable objectives, I think getting upset b/c a book didn't give equal coverage to both languages is ridiculous and punishing an author with a 1 star review is really unfairly punitive. But, if equal coverage of both languages is what you need in a book - then be advised, you're going to be disappointed. If on the other hand, you feel that you can code in either language and that understanding the framework is what's important, well, you'll find this book rewarding. Code examples in both languages (and hey, if we're going to knock authors for discriminating against VB.NET, why not trash everyone that doesn't cover managed C++ or J# too. And what about F#?) take up a lot of space and Scott uses that space to delve into the functional areas of LINQ.
It starts out covering the new language features of VB.NET 9 and C# 3.0 - features necessary to support linq and which are used commonly when coding with LINQ. Those include features such as object initializers, collection initializers, extension methods, implicitly typed local variables, lambda expressions, expression trees etc.
He proceeds to the basic mechanics of LINQ queries. Much of this is covered in MSDN but he certainly expounds upon each area enough to make a substantive difference in your understanding. He moves on to LINQ to Objects and has a pretty detailed coverage of using LINQ to create business objects. He then moves to LINQ to XML and LINQ to Sql. The LINQ to XML coverage is excellent and leaves you wanting for nothing. The LINQ to Sql discussion is also pretty detailed although the coverage related to passing LINQ through tiers is a little short. However that's the case with each LINQ book and that's mainly b/c LINQ 2 Sql's n-tier story is not a happy one. He does cover the .Attach method which is about all you really can cover in that respect without really covering it as its own topic.
In his coverage of each of these, he covers the use of Lambda expressions and expression trees and provides many examples of each. Readers will likely find this coverage alone justification for buying the book. In my experinece, truly understanding LAMDAS is not hard, but learning them (at least for me) wasn't very linear. Instead of learning a little more each time I studied them, i typically made little progress and then had an 'a-ha' moment. To that end, seeing diverse examples really helped me out along the way - since seeing different implementation helped me have more a-ha's.
With respect to LINQ to Sql - Scott dedicates a good bit of the book to it. In fact, I think he may have dedicated a little too much to it. Not in the sense that other areas were left short b/c he covered L2S so in depth, but I have found that LINQ to sql is very limiting in many business respects and its use in a mulit-tier scenario (and for that matter, any time you can't keep a persistent connection open) really limits its usefulness. He covers the ins and outs of it and has a pretty decent demo application that's built throughout the chapter. THe coverage is extensive enough that you may walk away from it feeling like it'd be a great choice for your own business application - at least in my experience, I've found that may not be the best idea. Again though, it's not the author's fault there are those limitations and it'd be unfair to fault him for covering it too well.
THe book is big enough that he gives each area the attention it deserves so even though Linq 2 sql gets a lot of coverage, so does everythign else. There are copious examples throughout the book and they are all original enough that you can definitely get a full understanding of the issue at hand.
So if you're looking for a solid LINQ reference that covers all of the important aspects of LINQ - you'll like this book. If on the other hand, you are looking for a book that is absolutely non-discriminatory in its coverage of VB.NET (I'll note as well that at no time does this book present itself as though it covered each language equally) - well, learning LINQ is the last of your problems
 This is not for VB May 1, 2008
David A. Young (Katy, TX USA)
4 out of 22 found this review helpful
Unless you really read between the lines this book has few pages devoted to VB. There is a small chapter on VB and XML with LINQ. I can't even understand why it was even put in here since the rest of the book is C#.
If you are looking for a LINQ to SQL book on VB don't get this.
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