MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-561): Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 ADO.NET Application Development (Self-Paced Training Kits) [ハードカバー]

My copy arrived from Amazon this morning (1st April 2009). I took and passed the ADO.NET 3.5 (beta) exam a year ago, but I am looking for book(s) to recommend to others who want to get certified.

This book provides satisfactory information about ADO.NET 2.0 data APIs such as DbConnections, DbDataAdapters, DataSets, and so on. According to Microsoft's official exam preparation guide, these topics are 60% of the exam. (You need 70% to pass.)

But I have major issues with the rest of the content...

1) LINQ to XML isn't in the exam, yet there is a 10 page lesson on it. (I'm not too bothered about this, because it's nice to have extra content, but why not flag it as "bonus" material not required for the exam?)

2) Entity Framework (EF) is 11% of the exam, but the EF chapter is only 28 of 500 pages (and those 28 pages include a lab exercise and review questions; the actual lesson content is only 19 pages!).

3) The lesson content for "Synchronization Services for ADO.NET" (Sync) is 10 pages. Combined with caching and notification (see comment 4 below) Sync is 15% of the exam. In my opinion this is the most egregious example of weak content. There should be *at least* 100 pages of content on Sync because it can get very complicated when setting up the classes to do bi-directional sync and handling conflicts.

4) There is a good section on SqlCacheDependency, but nothing on SqlDependency or SqlNotificationRequest. The authors could at least have said "SqlDependency works with SQL Server 2005 and later. It has a AddCommandDependency method to tell it what data you're interested in being notified about. Hook up to the OnChange event to receive those notifications."

5) LINQ (and especially LINQ to SQL) are a minor percentage of exam questions (~5%), yet 100+ pages are spent on them. To be clear, I'm not saying I want less LINQ content. I just think there should also be 100+ pages each on EF and Sync.

6) ADO.NET Data Services is not in the exam, but it has a 40 page chapter. Is it because one of the author's was contracturally obligated to provide n pages of content, knew a bit about this topic, and threw it in, even though it is not relevant to the audience for this book? (Like with LINQ to XML, I would not be as bothered by this *if* the authors had put more effort into topics actually on the exam.)

I have written books and training courses myself, so I know how difficult it can be, and therefore have *some* sympathy for the authors. OTOH, if you don't want to do the work, don't agree to write a book! (Or in this case, since there are three authors, a third of a book. I wonder which author(s) were responsible for the EF and Sync content...)

[...]

To learn EF, I bought all the books that cover it, and in my opinion the best is Julia Lerman's Programming Entity Framework. To learn Sync, I just read the MSDN documentation.

Sadly, spending an hour on Microsoft's free MSDN site will provide better information on the new data APIs in ADO.NET 3.5 than buying this book.

If MS Press needs good reviewers before publishing future books on .NET topics, please get in touch via MSN: markjprice

This book is sufficient for passing the exam. This was the only resource I used (aside from MSDN), and I passed the exam. However, I must say that this book will only be sufficient if you have experience with some ADO.NET functionality already - preferably database connections and structuring principles. If you are completely new to ADO.NET and database use in general, this will only provide a good starting point and more reading will be required to fully understand the topics well enough for the exam.

Compared to other Microsoft training kits, this one was disappointing for many reasons (hence the lower review than I've given other books). Firstly, the grammatical errors are plentiful. They are present not only in the text but in the example code as well. For example, more than one LINQ query suddenly has a reference to a new variable that should not be there. Look through the examples carefully and do not accept them if they don't make sense. Similar errors exist in the lesson review questions.

The content itself is left at a high level, for the most part. While some areas like connection strings are described with a great deal of verbiage, most areas that need it such as LINQ and Entity Framework are left quite short. For example, useful topics related to those two sections include lambda expressions and better descriptions of WHERE clause syntax - none of which is present. The coverage is broad, yet shallow. While I understand that DataSet use is a deep topic, additional examples and use cases would be helpful for the exam.

The practice tests were typical for the MCTS training kits. The questions helped to illuminate the areas missed by the book, though there are still some errors - e.g. questions that are marked as incorrect when the explanation states it should be correct. The book itself acts more as a supplement to the training exam.

In all, the book was useful as a preparation guide, but only barely. It was far more helpful to me to have a solid understanding of databases and relational structures than it would have been to have only used the book. With some extra content on EF, LINQ, and DataSets, this book could be much better and a more well-rounded preparation guide. As it stands, though, it is merely mediocre - however, mediocre enough to help me pass the exam... If the quality of the material dropped below this level, the value of the study guide would be insufficient to merit using it as preparation for the exam.

If you're the type who is easily frustrated, this book will drive you up a wall. I've only read the first 103 pgs, but already I've found the following errors (not counting trivial spelling errors):

1) p. 19, there is a mixup between RsaProtectedConfigurationProvider, which is specified, and DataProtectionConfigurationProvider, which is actually used. Note that this error occurs in the VB code, but not in the C# code.

2) pp. 43-44, we are told we will see a demonstration of a transaction where a column is updated in one table, and a row is inserted into another table; instead, the VB code shows two SELECT statements (the C# code is correct, however).

3) p. 51, quiz question #1, option A is said to be correct, and option B is said to be incorrect, even though the only apparent difference is that option A uses a user id and password, whereas option B uses SSPI. The answer key says that in option B there is no space between the words "Initial" and "Catalog," but there is no way for the reader to know this since the line is split after the word "Initial" (this split occurs in options A and B alike).

4) p. 103, quiz question #2, option A is said to be correct, and option C is said to be incorrect because there is no such thing as a "LEFT INNER JOIN". Of course, option A uses the same LEFT INNER JOIN that is employed in option C.

I'm going to keep working with this Training Kit because there really isn't any alternative. Still, these kinds of typos are inexcusable.

UPDATE: typos seem to be limited primarily to the sections written by James Wightman; sections by Mark Blomsma ad Shawn Wildermuth (pp. 133ff) seem mostly OK. The practice exams on the CD use an italicized font, and this makes some of the words almost unreadable on my 22-inch, 1680x1050 LCD monitor.