views:

40

answers:

2

I'm looking for specific and current advice from professional .NET + SQL Server developers on:

  1. best way to get up to speed
  2. best reference materials or books to use
  3. any pitfalls to watch out for

I'm starting a new position next week in which I will be developing advanced accounting software (LAN software) using Visual Studio 2010, Visual Basic, and SQL Server.

I am an experienced programmer (16 years), with a strong background in web development using Python, PostgreSQL, PHP, MySQL. I have also completed a number of smaller projects in Visual C#, so I have a general familiarity with .NET. I have not used Microsoft SQL Server.

I've marked this as community wiki because of the inherit subjective nature of the question.

Thanks in advance!

+1  A: 

On the SQL Server side, I'd recommend reading:

Joe Stefanelli
These look excellent -- thank you!
gahooa
+1  A: 

Learn the classes provided in System.Data.SqlClient Namespace . They will provide you with the tools you need create connections and run queries.

Learn the classes in ADO.net. They provide built in functionality such as Dataadapters and Datatables which are very powerful. Datatables can mimic actual tables locally including schema mappings and obeying constraints. You can use command builders to automatically generate update, insert and delete statements. If you want to decouple your server technology from your code there is a DBFactory provider which covers many of the major database technologies. ADO.net is very powerful an automates a lot of common database tasks.

If you're feeling thrifty, there are a lot of resources on the internet which will provide you with enough sample code to get started yourself. Java2s provides a lot of free quick samples to get you started.

Shiftbit
Very nice... Thanks!
gahooa