Hi David,

>I've read about 5 books on .Net, and none of them had very good overviews of the IDE.

That's what I have been gathering

>> One book, however, really improved my understanding of the IDE, and that's ADO.Net Step by Step from Microsoft Press.

I hadn't looked at that one. I will put it on my Powell's list.

>I think one problem is that there just aren't a lot of good .Net books out there. As Rebecca Riordan, the author says, "we're all beginners now". It shows in the selection!

Very true. I expecially like the ones you can get used for $.62 or $2.00. They were some of the early stuff written off the alpha version and clearly aren't in much demand. My first interest is in the Compact Framework and there is absolutely nothing yet. (Well, Amazon has several for sale that won't even be released until Sept <g>)

pamela