CLR via C#, Second Edition

Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0 : Programming Smart Client Data Applications with .NET (Microsoft Net Development Series)

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (Solid Quality Learning)

Windows Forms 2.0 Programming (2nd Edition) (Microsoft Net Development Series)

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming (Pro-Developer)

Databases

A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005 (Microsoft .Net Development)

Format: Paperback
Author: Bob Beauchemin
ReleaseDate: 28 April, 2006
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Rating:

Stuffed with goodies
At times, the content in the book goes a little heavy but the information is very useful and every sentence in the book has useful information that you want to capture in your brain. You really need some time to go over this book. So, read this book slowly and carefully to absorb most of it.

integrate Web Services with SQL Server
It shows improvements on many fronts to SQL Server. There is a heck of a lot stuffed between the covers of this book. Quite possibly, any given reader won't need every new feature, or even most. But Microsoft clearly hopes that the broad sweep will have broad appeal to developers.

On one front, there is integration with Web Services. So that in SQLCLR, you can invoke a Web Service. To this ends, the text has a quick explanation of Web Services Description Language, and how various utilities are offered, to make stubs or proxies. It may be worth noting that a proxy can be implemented as synchronous or asynchronous. Why is this significant? Some of you might have written client-server code using Sun's Remote Procedure Calls. By default, these used to be synchronous. Which led to very brittle code. A client could hang, waiting for a tardy server to respond. In SQL Server, you might want to consider favouring asynchronous methods, which can give more robust, loosely-coupled systems.

There is an extensive discussion of how the entire rubric of Web Services can be deeply integrated with the SQL Server. Impressive. Though some readers might wonder if this seems to be a 2 tier implementation, rather than the common 3 tiers often promulgated in this business. Well, a 2 tier system can be more responsive and scale better than a 3 tier. With the drawback that since your business logic is embedded in the database, you are tied to that database. But if you are already a SQL Server house, and have no plans to migrate, then this should not be a problem.

Of course, the book talks about much else. But it was the Web Services that caught my eye.

A must have


I first got to know the authors through the beta of this book, "A First Look at SQL Server for Developers" - which quickly became the De facto standard. This is THE book on SQL Server 2005 development. This is the RTM version of that book.

If you purchased all the books on this topic, some would be on your bookshelf, and one would be on your desk. This is the one which would be on your desk. The authors are experts, and the book is very well written. It is simply the best book on the topic that exists. Much like Michael Kay's XSLT book.