Introduction

Welcome. It's been a while since I wrote my last Hitchhiker's Guide that focuses on application design and development. The previous book in this series, Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server, 6th Edition, was first published by Microsoft Press in 1998while I was still working for Microsoft's Internal Technical Education group. Visual Basic 6.0 had just hit the streets, and SQL Server 7.0 was about to be launched. The introduction from the sixth edition observed that a lot of important changes had been made since the previous editionsignificant changes to Visual Basic, ADO, SQL Server, and the tools and techniques to connect them. I didn't think that the technology could change much more radically than introducing a fully compiled Visual Basic and a new version of a fairly sophisticated data access interface (COM-based ADO) to drive it. I was wrong.

Today, given the current state of SQL Server and what Microsoft calls "Visual Basic," saying that a lot has changed over the last seven years would be a gross understatement. Just before I retired from Microsoft in 2000, Microsoft walked away from its COM-based version of Visual Basic (6.0) as it introduced its successor: Visual Basic .NET built on the new .NET Frameworkthe foundation for Vista. At the time, it was clear that these changes would require a cover-to-cover rewrite of my Hitchhiker's Guide, but I was not in a position to take on a project of this magnitudenot until the dust had settled on .NET. Instead, I wrote two more focused books for Apress: ADO and ADO.NET Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic Programmers, for Visual Basic 6.0 developers transitioning to Visual Basic .NET; and (with Peter Blackburn) a C# version: ADO.NET Examples and Best Practices for C# Programmers. Neither of these ADO-focused books really addressed many of the fundamental architectural concepts and techniques included in previous editions of the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Along the way, Peter Blackburn came on board and was instrumental in getting these two Apress books to market and subsequently convinced me to write a more focused book on his favorite topicSQL Server Reporting Services. Since the next version of Visual Studio (Whidbey) was not due for another year, it seemed like a good idea (at the time). This project was expected to generate a 200-page book in about three months. In actuality, it took over a year to grind out, but Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Addison-Wesley) is a 780-page tome that's the most respected book on SQL Server Reporting Services yet published. Peter did the bulk of the research and initial writing, and provided significant (and greatly appreciated) technical guidance and logistical support for the seventh edition.