Customer Reviews

Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB.NET 2005 (Expert's Voice in .NET)

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

 

 

I was looking for a solid, comprehensive, yet approachable ASP.NET 2.0 book for a long time when I stumbled across Pro ASP.NET 2.0. I flipped through it and quickly realized that it is both the learning and reference tool I was wanting. Since getting the book, I have not swayed from that position. This book is a great way to get started and to keep going in your ASP.NET development efforts.

Although large (it weighs in at over 1200 pages), it is well organized and easily accessible. The material builds on itself in such a way that you don't need to read the first 900 pages to effectively use the later chapters. Additionally, the content is organized in a practical approach so you can get started relatively quickly. I find this technique helpful in that it I have more information when it comes time to answer specific questions. I never found myself "wishing" I know more in order to understand a concept.

On the down-side, there are some glaring typographical errors throughout the text. It is pretty obvious in some places that there is a copy/paste error from the C# version to the VB version. None of the errata detracts from the book for me. In fact, in some cases, the little research I did to clarify something actually helped.

All told, I have and continue to highly recommend this book to colleagues and clients alike. It is both an excellent learning tool and a great reference. The fact that one person wrote the entire text and in two programming languages amazes me. The author has an easy writing style that promotes absorbing the information quickly. I anticipate this book becoming tattered quite quickly!

I am reading this book now for some time. I have worked through the first 5 chapters and I am now in middle of the sixth. The content might be pretty accurate and maybe even comprehensive but there are 4 MAJOR problems which overshadow anything else. They are what I wrote in the title:

A) MISSING: The author almost never starts by stating "add a new class and name it whatever" or "add three textboxes and one label". just throws you something like "heres the complete code" now from the snapshot i am able to figure out how he named the webform, which controls did he add how he named those controls etc. the source code on the Apress site is a must, cuz otherwise you'll be guessing you're head off on every page. Every 2 minutes I'm asking myself:
should i add a module now? no? maybe soon?
is this a new namespace?
do i add that to the previous web form? or is it a replacement?
is that a table, or div tags?
other than that he also usually forgets to tell you when a namespace needs to be "imports"ed. probably to leave a challenge to the user why the editor is underlining all the object types.

B) INCONSISTENT: most snippets of code that are more than a few lines will always have some naming conflicts. in line 1 the button is name cmdSave in line 10 it might be cmdSubmit. I mean this didn't happen once or twice it is a constant problem. As i type, i'm indebted to the VB editor in VWD for cathing these booboos.

C) OVERDONE: this might not be a real problem. but as i am not yet such a seasoned ASP.NET 2.0 developer, i find reading pages upon pages of Http pipelines, ASP.NET providers, multiple comparison charts of State management options and custom tracing capabilities before even teaching how to put up a simple data-driven website with simple user and group options, extremely overdone and over comprehensive. if the author wanted to show how much he knows about asp.net 2.0 he could have done so in the preface.

D) THEORETICAL: Everything taught is immediately followed by some code snippet which you could try and figure out where to plug it in and see if it works. he never (so far) builds upon something already done. I am now in the sixth chapter and have a mumble-jumble of techniques to accomplish a variety of odd and end functionality. I haven't the slightest idea of how to build a real world site.

Again, I'm in the sixth chapter only. I'm still hoping to find some useful information in the remaining ones. Just felt I should let people know about it to save them from aggravation.

Although this book is only an introduction, the structure and depth are more than fine. After all, to discuss every single thing ASP.NET 2.0 has to offer would require several volume of HUGE books. I would suggest this book to anyone wants to learn ASP.NET 2.0, even with background other than VB.

To the authors, you did a great job!!!

I am very pleased with this book. After a couple of failed attempts to find a good ASP.NET 2.0 book I finally found this book. They really did a great job at covering a vast quantity of topics with enough substance that one can actually understand and apply to real life programming situations.

There are some typographical errors and very few examples that don't work but in sight of the great volume of information and examples given, I'd say it is acceptable.

I think I hit a jackpot with this book and I am looking for other books by the same authors that cover more specific topics and I doubt I'll be disappointed.

I have bought several other books on 2.0 and wish I had discoverd this one first. In each of the different categories, this book is written in order and style to learn and use as a reference. For me, a person with vb6 and asp classic experience this one hit the nail on the head.