A First Look at ADO.NET and System.Xml v. 2.0 is the latest book about data access in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework (Whidbey). The book was released to the public at the same time at PDC conference in October 2003 as its companion book, A First Look at ASP.NET v2.0 which I reviewed in my previous article.

The aim of the book is, as its name implies, to provide the first view to the new features of ADO.NET and XML in .NET Framework v2.0. The reader is supposed to have a peek at the directions, intentions and driving requirements that have been the basis for the development of the next version as well as get some "hands on" view of what's coming so that he or she is ready when .NET v2.0 arrives and is able to design applications to suit this evolution.

The book starts with an overview chapter that provides the roadmap for the rest of the book. All the new features that will be covered are briefly summarized so that the reader can have a solid picture of what's included in following chapters. Without hesitating the discussion starts right after this chapter, as you can see at the next paragraph, with a look at the major new features of ADO.NET v.2.0 and continues to provide the XML view of the aspect.  The next version of SQL Server "Yukon" is introduced in the context as an RDBMS for the next generation of .NET applications.

It is assumed that the reader has previous knowledge of ADO.NET and XML in .NET Framework. To try out the code examples the reader needs to have Technology Preview version of .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET (Whidbey). This version is available for MSDN Universal subscribers and PDC conference attendees as well as for Whidbey alpha testers. Also note that this book is about Technology Preview of the product and therefore there's high probability that some implementations will change.