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LINQ in Action

By Fabrice Marguerie, Steve Eichert, Jim Wooley

Media: Book (Paperback, 600 pages)
ISBN: 1933988169
Publisher: Manning Publications
Release Date: Feb 4, 2008

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Product Description

LLINQ, Language INtegrated Query, is a new extension to the Visual Basic and C# programming languages designed to simplify data queries and database interaction. It addreses O/R mapping issues by making query operations like SQL statements part of the programming language. It also offers built-in support for querying in-memory collections like arrays or lists, XML, DataSets, and relational databases.

LINQ in Action is a fast-paced, comprehensive tutorial for professional developers. This book explores what can be done with LINQ, shows how it works in an application, and addresses the emerging best practices. It presents the general purpose query facilities offered by LINQ in the upcoming C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 languages. A running example introduces basic LINQ concepts. You'll then learn to query unstructured data using LINQ to XML and relational data with LINQ to SQL. Finally, you'll see how to extend LINQ for custom applications.

LINQ in Action will guide you along as you explore this new world of lambda expressions, query operators, and expression trees. As well, you'll explore the new features of C# 3.0, VB.NET 9.0. The book is very practical, anchoring each new idea with running code. Whether you want to use LINQ to query objects, XML documents, or relational databases, you will find all the information you need to get started

But LINQ in Action does not stop at the basic code. This book also shows you how LINQ can be used for advanced processing of data, including coverage of LINQ's extensibility, which allows querying more data sources than those supported by default. All code samples are built on a concrete business case. The running example, LinqBooks, is a personal book cataloging system that shows you how to create LINQ applications with Visual Studio 2008.

LINQ in Action rocks

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.

Submitted 7 Oct 2008

A required desktop reference

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.

Submitted 29 Sep 2008

Stutters onthe most important area

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.

Submitted 26 Aug 2008

Comprehensible Tutorial

This book is a well-written tutorial that is generally easy to understand. The logic is straightforward and the language is much better than in most of the other books I have been studying on ASP.NET 3.5 and C#. My only complaint is that I would have liked to see more depth in some sections. To fill in some of the gaps I have found "C# 3.0 in a Nutshell," from O'Reilly Media, to be very helpful, but I wouldn't consider it a replacement for this book. There is an online forum that goes with "LINQ in Action," and two of the authors and some other contributors are very responsive to questions. There are also some files of source code that can be downloaded from the Internet.

Submitted 8 Aug 2008

Great detail. Well organized and thorough.

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.

Submitted 8 Aug 2008