The 7th Edition s Scope


The 7th Edition's Scope

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server, 7th Edition, is intended to provide a broad treatment of Visual Studio and SQL Server, how they interact, and how developers can build professional applications using these tools and engines. In case you didn't pick up on this from this introduction, that's been my specialty for some time. When working at Microsoft University and over the last 20 years interacting with developers and other resources, I accumulated a wealth of information that's not found in the documentation. When MSU folded and I moved to the Visual Basic documentation team, I was "permitted" to document Visual Basic but not SQL Serverthe documentation had to be "generic" and apply equally to all database backends. All of my books have filled this gap between the language (Visual Basic) and the various versions of SQL Server.

The seventh edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide takes an even broader view of data access development when compared to previous editions. That's because Visual Basic. NET is not the Visual Basic language discussed in the earlier editionsthus the change in the title to Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server. Today, RAD development is as much about Visual Studio as it is about the development language. That's because Visual Studio generates a significant amount of code in the selected language and provides so many tools, wizards, controls, classes, and interfaces that are common to all of the languages it hosts. As a result, the 7th edition spends considerable time discussing how the Visual Studio toolset can be, should be, and should not be used to create professional applications.

SQL Server has also introduced an entirely new paradigm. Server-side executables can now be written in Visual Basic .NET or C#. This means stored procedures, functions, triggers, user-defined types, and aggregates can all be written using Visual Studio and a familiar CLR language. Here in the seventh edition, I spend a long time discussing how and when it makes sense to design and implement each of thesewell beyond the scope of previous editions of the Hitchhiker's Guide. You'll find the entire book is focused on connecting to and running queries on SQL Servernot Oracle, DB2, or JET. Sure, developers who need to access other DBMS platforms have praised my previous books because the fundamental principles and best practices I describe often (usually) apply to other DBMS platforms as well.

In any case, I don't want to dissuade developers from buying the book just because "Visual Basic" or "C#" is on the cover; 99.44% of the book's content applies equally to C# and Visual Basic .NET, although most of the examples are provided in Visual Basic .NET. I had originally planned to provide parallel C# examples in addition to Visual Basic .NET, but I ran out of time and bandwidth. I expect most C# developers can easily translate Visual Basic .NET code to C#. But the same can't be said for a portion of Visual Basic .NET developersespecially those transitioning from Visual Basic 6.0. I also did not include a SQL Server version number in the title, as the discussions apply to any post-SQL Server 2000 version, including SQL Server 2005 and its service packs. Given Microsoft's stated intent to update its products every year or after every lawsuit, I needed to do what I could to keep the title (and content) from getting stale before its time.




Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server(c) Best Practice Architectures and Examples
Hitchhikers Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server: Best Practice Architectures and Examples, 7th Edition (Microsoft Windows Server System Series)
ISBN: 0321243625
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 227

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