ADO Examples and Best Practices
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In this book review, Danny Lesandrini explores an ADO resource aimed at the experienced ADO user looking to glean additional information on the subject. The author offers a refreshing, light-humored approach that makes for an easy read from what could be considered a very dry subject.
"You're not reading this book for the jokes -- at least, I hope not."
If you have ever heard Bill Vaughn speak at a conference such as
VBITS,
you appreciate the significance of those opening words from his latest book,
ADO Examples and Best Practices, published by Apress.
Bill really is a funny guy, which makes reading this book a pleasure. More
importantly, though, he has an intimate knowledge of both Visual Basic and Microsoft's
Universal Data Access
technology. Add to that his 14+ years of experience at Microsoft (most recently as part
of the Microsoft Technical Education team), and you have the makings for a great publication.
Highlights
The book begins with a comprehensive history of the various ADO versions and points out
the "gotcha's" associated with upgrades to newer versions of MDAC. Next, Bill briefly
explains how to install and deploy ADO. After this quick introduction, he delves into the meat
of this best practices feast.
If you're not familiar with the Connection, Command and Recordset objects of ADO, then
you would do well to read up on the ADO object model before embarking on this journey.
Remember, this is a book on Best Practices, not an ADO tutorial. Some of the interesting
points I marked for reference are:
I particularly benefited from the following discussions:
Dim cn As New ADODB.Connection (pg 37)Do Until rs.EOF ... (pg 195)
The book also contains more advanced topics, such as ...
The companion CD for ADO Examples and Best Practices includes the following:
One of the utilities that comes with the source code is Bill's Stored Procedure Add-In
for VB. This popular little tool has been around since 1999 and is worth the price of admission all by itself. The add-in
works from within the Visual Basic environment, automating the process of generating correct
code for parameter-based stored procedures. It virtually eliminates the need to guess how to
construct the Parameters collection in code.
The verdict
I have to admit I am predisposed to books that focus on best practices. I picked
this book up as soon as it hit the store shelves. When the
angryCoder extended the offer to write a review, I jumped at the chance. I love this
book and would recommend it to any and all of my colleagues who develop Web or desktop applications using ADO.
On the other hand, if you're new to ADO, look elsewhere first. This book isn't a tutorial,
and it's not an ADO Reference volume. Definitely not for beginners.
Other recommendations
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server
