My first big assignment for Magenic was described to me by one of our salespeople over a rather expensive dinner involving a copious amount of alcohol. For these reasons (reason #1: salesperson, reason #2: alcohol), by the end of the conversation all I really knew about what I'd be walking into was that it was going to involve a database of some kind. This distinguished it from other projects in pretty much no way whatsoever.

Because I was eager to do well on my first assignment, however, I resolved to buy a book on database access from .NET and extend my solid understanding into absolute mastery within my first week on the job. The book I chose for this purpose was Shawn Wildermuth's Pragmatic ADO.NET. I do not believe I could possibly have chosen a better guide to the nuances of .NET database access.

Let me begin by saying that my choice was driven by respect for the publisher (Addison-Wesley), specific respect for the series (.NET Development Series), a personal recommendation for the book from an instructor at DevelopMentor, and - of course - the fact that the author is a fellow Magenic consultant whom I figured I could pester the crap out of if his book turned out not to be up-to-snuff. Thankfully (for Shawn as much as for myself), the pestering was not needed at all.

My background when I first started reading the book was that I had years of experience accessing databases from the Microsoft platform in general. Some of this experience had been using ODBC, most of it had been using OLEDB, and more recently I had done some work using ADO.NET. So, I didn't really need the first couple of chapters of the book, which covered historical information and an explanation of the philosophy of ADO.NET.

Because I had used ADO.NET Commands, I didn't think that I would need the third chapter either. As it turned out, however, Shawn managed to dig into so many details of ADO.NET command usage that I learned plenty, even from this early chapter. This success inspired me to work through Chapter 4, "Reading Data," as well - with similar positive results.

Chapter 4 concludes Part One of the book. The ~150 pages that constitute the four chapters in Part Two of the book are absolute, essential, drop-whatever-the-hell-you're-doing-and-read-them-right-now essays on the importance and proper use of the DataSet in ADO.NET. Now, it is my contention (and the increasing opinion of many in the .NET community) that DataSets are overused in current .NET software development practices. Having said this, they are ubiquitous in ADO.NET-based software projects and understanding how to use them properly is a matter of the utmost importance for anyone hoping to achieve an expert-level command of software creation using .NET. Shawn's material here is your key to that expertise!

The final three chapters of the book will enrich your development understanding as well. If I have any complaint with this book, though, it would be only that there is no real unifying concept behind the final three chapters, other than being advanced concepts in ADO.NET data access.