LINQ in Action: Book Review

Recently I got a copy of the book "LINQ in Action" (by Fabrice Marguerie, Steve Eichert, Jim Wooley, and Matt Warren (Foreword))from Manning publishing. Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a great feature and I wrote about it in this blog.

The book targets the .NET developers who know C# (2.0) or VB.NET (8.0): Whether you don't know LINQ or you already know - this book is for you. Read it!

For me, it was a pleasure to read it: smooth, clear, didactic and effective.

The book divided into 4 parts:

Getting started, Querying objects in memory, Querying relational data, Manipulating XML and LINQing it all together. The book starts out with a brief of LINQ and then covers the main language enhancements of C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 including: Implicitly typed local variables, Object initializers, Lambda expressions, Extension methods, and Anonymous types. This is a great overview of the features!  There is also introduction covering the history of LINQ, which also presents all the problems that LINQ solves and the design goals of LINQ.

One of the things I really like in this book is that the book doesn't just focus on LINQ to SQL. If you want to know where LINQ is required - read this book. Also, if you want deep dive into LINQ's core - this book is for you. The great thing of this book: It'll satisfy all developers spectrum. One of my favorites chapters in the book is the explanations about extending LINQ.

I think that the last part of the book: LINQing it all together is the best part. It's a great summary for a great book.

The book absolutely helps you and motivate you to use the technology on your next project.

To summarize: for me, this is the only required book for learning LINQ. if you want to know LINQ and love it, you must read this book!!!

LINQ in Action - 5 stars in Maor's index.