Customer Reviews

ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am an experienced developer so I only expected to skim over the book to get familiar with any of the new asp.net 3.5 features. I found myself reading every word of every page because the book was actually "entertaining". The writing is very smooth and easy to understand. You feel as if a really good teacher who knows how to relate to people is talking to you.

I was also surprised how deep the book was able to go into each subject. For example Linq is a very complicated subject yet the book does contain enough examples for you to use it in the real world.

I almost didn't by the ASP.NET 3.5 for Dummies. Then I noticed that it was a different author than ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies and I thought I would give it a look. Bill Hatfield wrote the 'Dummies' book on the previous version and while I found him to be very knowledgeable, I got frustrated because I was trying to learn how to use Visual Studio with ASP.NET and his book didn't provide much help. Ken Cox however "gets it". He wrote the book for use with Visual Studio and by the end of Chapter 4 you're already using AJAX with no difficulty! By chapter 7 you're delving into LINQ! Ken's approach is intelligent and his style works both for the beginner as well as those more seasoned in ASP.NET. Excellent book!

This book is huge value for money!

It has taken me seven weeks to work my way through it. ASP.Net 3.5 is a very broad topic, and so to give it the `For Dummies' treatment would have been quite challenging, and required quite some dedication by the author, Ken Cox.

Quite apart from the book, owners get access to a website with downloadable examples for every chapter in VB or C#. There is also a forum on this website where Ken will assist you, should you have problems with the examples. I can attest to receiving assistance over the weekend!

By the end of the book:
* You will have some familiarity with all of the new v.3.5 controls, AJAX, Linq, consuming object data like RSS feeds, XML, video, Flash, etc.
* You will have been introduced to the starter kits, developed a shopping cart, and been given a thorough grounding in debugging and error trapping.

The book concludes with a discussion on deploying to a hosted site, and then ties you into the community of ASP.Net developers by advising which blogs, newsgroups and forums to subscribe to.

If you consider that you get all of the above, and a working familiarity with all of those technologies for the cover price of the book, it is amazing value for money.

I was able to take those learnings and refactor them into my code-base without problems. I have also had a couple of ideas for saleable software products, and already made a start on them.

Not exactly "This book changes lives," but certainly, "This book gives you a huge leg-up on your job!"

I recently finished this book and feel so much better about the subject. I was a classic ASP programmer and took a couple of years off from programming. When I returned, I downloaded Visual Web Developer 2008 and was lost. I was used to programming in Notepad, and all this click and drag stuff was foreign to me.

After reading this book, I realized that things that took me hours to do in classic ASP, now only take minutes. The book is well organized, adds lots of humor and reads well from cover to cover. It is also a nice reference, and most of the chapters are set up so that if you want to skip forward a bit (which I did here and there), you aren't lost.

I really liked the sections on LINQ and site security. Ken Cox explains these subjects like butter: nice and smooth! This is a great guide for anyone interested in the subject. I have a very complex project that I am working on, and I feel comfortable moving forward with the project after reading this book.

This is not the first ASP.Net book I've read. This is the first one I've enjoyed!-)

Because of this book I'll reconsider my attitude towards the whole series. Suddenly it seems a great idea - get the basics with no pain.

I liked the humor. I liked the fact the author's making it so easy. I like the stress on using the tools and not writing the code by hand.

I key in the samples. Then I look at the code generated by the tools. Then I look at the code sent to the browser.

A great way to learn. And have fun.

This is an excellent and enjoyable text for getting up to speed on ASP.NET 3.5. This step-by-step guide has numerous examples in VB (and C# versions on the author's site) that allows one to get practical exposure to the most current version of the ASP.NET technology. The book is well suited for both the beginner and anyone who has worked extensively with earlier versions of ASP.NET and needs a primer for getting up to speed on the ASP.NET 3.5 technology. Finally, the author Ken Cox is very responsive to questions regarding the examples shown in his book (he responded to my Email within a couple of hours). It is refreshing to see an author that takes so much pride in his work and produces such a fine, well written text.

This book is great for both geeks and 'regular' people.
What I liked :
- good pratical coverage of LINQ (LINQ to SQL, LINQ to objects). Not complete, for covering all LINQ subtilities would require to buy books devoted to LINQ (like 'LINQ in action', or 'Pro LINQ'), but here, it's really practical : you immediatly have the pleasure of using LINQ and see it work fine, in conjunction with a ListView or drop down list filled with the result of your LINQ queries
- good intro to painless Ajax
- extremly clear explanations
- code samples that work. I typed most of the code in Visual Web Developer to play with all the samples and got them compiling and working fine.
- writing style.

What I didn't like :
- VB code. I'm a C# guy. But googling each time my translation of VB into C# failed wasn't that hard. And that allowed me to discover great bloggers. On top of that, the framework is the same : so learning about a new class in this book is useful whatever .NET language you usualy use. I seems the C# version of the code of this book is on the author's website.

I have to say that I already studied C#3.0 and ASP.NET3.5 in other books. So most of what I read in this book was a good way of reviewing and completing what I already more or less knew. But it's obvious the author is a great teacher : often, he answered a question that I asked myself in the next paragraph.

So if you like to learn by doing, buy this book.

This was a basic introduction to ASP.NET 3.5 - good for someone who has no experience with ASP.NET, but not detailed enough for someone who has worked with ASP.NET 1.0 - 3.0.

Mr. Cox did a great job writing this book. It is very well laid out, and the material is easy to digest. I learned a lot from the book, and I am quite pleased.

Im a newbie to this .Net Technology.
I purchased Sams Learn C# in 24 hours & Ken Cox Asp.Net 3.5
I completed both these books in a month.

Its really awesome. Wowww...Im doing real good with .Net now.
I would recommend Ken Cox's ASP.NEt book to a newbie who is determined to master this techology.
Its a completly beginner book.
I would say " After reading this book , go for Sams ASP.NET Unleashed(Intermediate to advanced)....
Thats it :: Im sure you will NAIL it.

P.S :: Wowww..Lot of Metaphors..Humor...
While reading this book, somehow im feeling it lively as if KEN COX is reading/ demonstrating it for me :P