Book advice for ADO.NET & Windows Forms with C#

[adodotnet20]

Hi,
I need to create an application in C# that will be fairly simple from a
UI prospective and that will be able to retrieve some information from
a db. The overall look and feel should be nice but not too
sophisticated. There are two areas that will need to shine though:
first a datagrid which needs to be very nice looking and flexible
(editable almost like an excel spreadsheet), and second a report that
will need to be cool looking as well and printable. I'm thinking of
getting a couple of books to support me through the creation of this
project and I need some advice.

1) To reinforce the windows forms skills I was thinking of getting
Windows Forms 2.0 Programming, by Chris Sells and Michael Weinhardt. Do
you reccomend this?

2) For the ADO.NET area, I need a book that covers the DataGrid control
very well but which also gives me a good overview on how to create
robust data oriented windows applications. I'm divided between the
specific "Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0: Programming Smart Client
Data Applications with .NET", by Brian Noyes and the more general
"Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Core Reference (Hardcover), by David
Sceppa". Which one of the two would you buy? Keep in mind that I'll be
buying these books expecially for the project above, but I may end up
developing other database oriented windows applications in the near
future.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

 

[JTC ^..^]

Hi,
I need to create an application in C# that will be fairly simple from a
UI prospective and that will be able to retrieve some information from
a db. The overall look and feel should be nice but not too
sophisticated. There are two areas that will need to shine though:
first a datagrid which needs to be very nice looking and flexible
(editable almost like an excel spreadsheet), and second a report that
will need to be cool looking as well and printable. I'm thinking of
getting a couple of books to support me through the creation of this
project and I need some advice.

"Nice" - please don't tell me that was in the specification. I apoligise
if I'm not being helpful, but general comments in specifications should
be eliminated or require clarification.

My first thoughts on this are, that Excel will do the job.

Unless C# is being used for a specific reason then C# is a tool not a
solution.

 

[adodotnet20]

"Nice" - please don't tell me that was in the specification. I apoligise
if I'm not being helpful, but general comments in specifications should
be eliminated or require clarification.

Hi JTC,

thanks for your comment. That isn't the actual specification, but
rather a short description that I formulated as a way to explain that
the application won't be overly complicated from a UI perspective. I'll
need to acquire decent skills in order to be able to show in the
windows form the analyzed data and produce a printable and decent
looking report with charts. The datagrid won't actually need to be like
excel, it will show certain data but allow the user to overwrite
certain fields so that they can automatically forecast hypothetic
scenarios. I'm looking for advice on the books, so I thought just a
general idea of the app requirements would be sufficient.