Book Review: ASP.NET Data Presentation Controls Essentials

While this is not a book for beginners in the ASP.NET world I found the book to be very informative.  Joydip Kanjilal has taken a section of data handling and display, dug into the internals and brings it to the pages of his first book.  Even though I've been in the ASP.NET world since it's inception I've never been a strong UI type developer.  With this book I have the essentials for using Win UI data display components.

Now, for the little nits:  While all the bits and parts were covered the book and the author displays a very clear understanding of the subject it was a little rough in parts.  Some of it was due to inconsistent indentations in code examples, some code bits that would obviously (to a seasoned developer) not compile due to syntax errors (using upper ASCII instead of quotes, line wrap issues not marked, etc).

For a first dive into LINQ Joydip did an excellent job.  While many people are trying to determine if LINQ is the right fit I see many uses for it in current and future development.  While some are against writing inline SQL in their business objects and others are all for it I think LINQ is the middle part of data <--> business that has been missing.  Yes, you can go directly against a data store with LINQ but I think the versatility of LINQ will shine in the middle layers.  Joydip does a good job of tickling your creative juices with his samples and helps open up some possibilities that have been lacking for a long time.  Not only can LINQ go directly against data sources like SQL and XML it can be a querying object against arrays, lists, generic collections and more.  It makes a great data source for a Model View Controller/Presenter approach as well.  Check out the LINQ Forums for more ideas.

Overall I liked the book.  I would recommend anyone interested in displaying data in ASP.NET to at least peruse the book and determine if there is enough for what they need.  I look forward to more books by Joydip.