Key reference for new Microsoft ORM tools, 26 Aug 2008
Pro LINQ Object-Relational Mapping in C# 2008 by Vijay Mehta (Apress July 2008) is a new book that goes beyond the first wave of introductory LINQ books and teaches you how to use LINQ in a practical application. Unlike other books about LINQ that have been published to date, Mehta's book does not describe LINQ syntax or go into detail about extension methods, lambda expressions and other C# 3.0 language features that make LINQ possible. These are topics with which the reader should be familiar, and there are also a number of excellent books on LINQ and C# 3.0.

What hasn't been available until now is a book that shows how to use LINQ for one of its primary design objectives, which is eliminating what has been called the impedance mismatch between objects and databases through object-relational mapping (ORM). This is an area in which the author is an acknowledged expert, and he shows not only how to apply LINQ to ORM, but also does so using design patterns, a domain-driven design and unit testing. To my knowledge, no other resource of this scope had been published to date as a book or in any other form.

The book features a real-world example - well, maybe an account management system for the First Bank of Pluto isn't exactly real-world - that runs over several chapters. Faithful to the objectives that he sets forth in the opening chapters, the application that Mehta develops is completely persistence-ignorant (PI) and also has no user interface (UI), making it an extremely focused study in the application of ORM and domain-driven design. Even the database is eventually generated from the domain model.

Adding to the book's strength, Mehta shows how to develop this application using both LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities (a k a ADO.NET 3.5 Entity Foundation or EF). In the process, he points out the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and dispels the widely held perception that LINQ to SQL is simply a RAD tool and that the Entity Framework is the only choice for enterprise applications. The reality is much less clear-cut, and Mehta capably shows that LINQ to SQL is a viable choice in many cases and that both of Microsoft's ORM frameworks will live a life of their own and hopefully develop independently.

As Mehta notes from the outset, ORM has not been common in the .NET/C# world for two reasons: the lack of native tools with object-oriented and object-persistence capacity. The .NET framework overcame the first of these obstacles, while LINQ now removes the second. How Microsoft's ORM tools will fare in the future remains to be seen, but Mehta gives them a good chance after giving them a thorough workout. In the closing chapter, he also provides an objective, although brief review of the NHibernate, EntitySpaces and LLBLGen Pro ORM tools as alternatives to LTS and EF.

In my opinion, this is a very well-balanced book that presents the strengths and weaknesses of LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET 3.5 Entity Foundation at an intermediate to advanced level that is appropriate for anyone wanting to make serious use of LINQ as an ORM tool. It is a book that I have been awaiting eagerly and that far exceeded my expectations. For learning how to develop real database applications using LINQ, there is simply nothing else out there.

In closing, however, it must be noted that this is not a book for beginners and that you need to understand the design patterns and domain-driven design that Mehta adopts in this book. These prerequisites and the balanced approached to LINQ to SQL and EF are the real strengths of this book in my opinion. Your mileage may vary, but at present, this is the book you need if you want to build serious, enterprise-level applications using LINQ.


Drivel, 06 Aug 2008
Just takes a bunch of keywords from established texts, jumbles then up, and returns them as drivel. Sent my copy straight back, dos not deserve the Pro title.

Key reference for new Microsoft ORM tools, 26 Aug 2008
Pro LINQ Object-Relational Mapping in C# 2008 by Vijay Mehta (Apress July 2008) is a new book that goes beyond the first wave of introductory LINQ books and teaches you how to use LINQ in a practical application. Unlike other books about LINQ that have been published to date, Mehta's book does not describe LINQ syntax or go into detail about extension methods, lambda expressions and other C# 3.0 language features that make LINQ possible. These are topics with which the reader should be familiar, and there are also a number of excellent books on LINQ and C# 3.0.

What hasn't been available until now is a book that shows how to use LINQ for one of its primary design objectives, which is eliminating what has been called the impedance mismatch between objects and databases through object-relational mapping (ORM). This is an area in which the author is an acknowledged expert, and he shows not only how to apply LINQ to ORM, but also does so using design patterns, a domain-driven design and unit testing. To my knowledge, no other resource of this scope had been published to date as a book or in any other form.

The book features a real-world example - well, maybe an account management system for the First Bank of Pluto isn't exactly real-world - that runs over several chapters. Faithful to the objectives that he sets forth in the opening chapters, the application that Mehta develops is completely persistence-ignorant (PI) and also has no user interface (UI), making it an extremely focused study in the application of ORM and domain-driven design. Even the database is eventually generated from the domain model.

Adding to the book's strength, Mehta shows how to develop this application using both LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities (a k a ADO.NET 3.5 Entity Foundation or EF). In the process, he points out the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and dispels the widely held perception that LINQ to SQL is simply a RAD tool and that the Entity Framework is the only choice for enterprise applications. The reality is much less clear-cut, and Mehta capably shows that LINQ to SQL is a viable choice in many cases and that both of Microsoft's ORM frameworks will live a life of their own and hopefully develop independently.

As Mehta notes from the outset, ORM has not been common in the .NET/C# world for two reasons: the lack of native tools with object-oriented and object-persistence capacity. The .NET framework overcame the first of these obstacles, while LINQ now removes the second. How Microsoft's ORM tools will fare in the future remains to be seen, but Mehta gives them a good chance after giving them a thorough workout. In the closing chapter, he also provides an objective, although brief review of the NHibernate, EntitySpaces and LLBLGen Pro ORM tools as alternatives to LTS and EF.

In my opinion, this is a very well-balanced book that presents the strengths and weaknesses of LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET 3.5 Entity Foundation at an intermediate to advanced level that is appropriate for anyone wanting to make serious use of LINQ as an ORM tool. It is a book that I have been awaiting eagerly and that far exceeded my expectations. For learning how to develop real database applications using LINQ, there is simply nothing else out there.

In closing, however, it must be noted that this is not a book for beginners and that you need to understand the design patterns and domain-driven design that Mehta adopts in this book. These prerequisites and the balanced approached to LINQ to SQL and EF are the real strengths of this book in my opinion. Your mileage may vary, but at present, this is the book you need if you want to build serious, enterprise-level applications using LINQ.


Drivel, 06 Aug 2008
Just takes a bunch of keywords from established texts, jumbles then up, and returns them as drivel. Sent my copy straight back, dos not deserve the Pro title.

way to understand multimedia databases, 31 Oct 2003
first of all, being an undergraduate student at TVU, i'm very pleased and extremly delighted to study under Prof. Lynne Dunckley.
this is a very good book for anybody keen to or in need of understanding the multimedia database architecture as a whole. the book is very easy to follow and full of exercies and also with examples of implementation of multimedia database for the two case studies, it makes easier for reader to understand the object relational approach in database design.