- C#, a modern, platform-independent programming language, combines popular features of Java with C++ and offers developers speed, portability, and suitability for large-scale development tasks - Offers a step-by-step approach to demonstrate how to create sophisticated database applications - Presents essential coverage of data sets, multi-table databases, and XML, and introduces professional database concepts to working programmers - Includes numerous working examples that tackle specific programming tasks - Companion Web site includes source code from the book