The Audience for and Purpose of This Book

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I wrote this book primarily for developers who have developed applications using ADO 2.x or other Microsoft data access technologies. In addition, it places non-proportional emphasis on SQL Server (particularly SQL Server 2000) as the data store. This is the case because it's my view that many, if not most, developers who are moving to ADO.NET will at least be using SQL Server in addition to other data stores such as Oracle. And, of course, my experience working for a Microsoft partner is primarily with SQL Server, so I can certainly speak to its integration with ADO.NET from first-hand knowledge rather than having to rely on third parties as I would have to do with other data stores.

You'll also notice that I make several references to my previous .NET book, Building Distributed Applications with Visual Basic .NET in notes and tips. Although I admit there's an aspect of self-promotion in play, that book goes more deeply into topics that are particular to the .NET Framework and common language runtime itself, whereas this book strives to stay focused on data and how to use ADO.NET. As a result, you'll often find more in-depth discussions of threading, delegates, garbage collection, and other issues in that book.

Finally, I wrote this book because I think ADO.NET as a technology is well suited to building modern Web-based and multi- tier applications. Its deep integration with XML, for example, makes it ideally suited for use in the brave new world of XML Web Services. Explicating its virtues in the Sams Teach Yourself series offers a unique approach to learning ADO.NET that's more interactive than a simple reference title, and yet isn't a bland tutorial of overly simplistic walkthroughs (my personal pet peeve with so many developer books). In any case, I hope you enjoy the book and I look forward to your feedback.

Dan  Fox
Shawnee,  Kansas
March  2001

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