Customer Reviews

Active Server Pages Bible

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book follows in the grand tradition of books from companies like IDG and Macmillan: Not nearly enough quality control.

Some examples of bloopers: (*) The author mentions that For Each ... Next is not supported in page 64. Voila! in page 91 he uses the same construct to show an example. (*) The description of PATH_INFO on page 142 is incorrect. (*) The last line of page 186 is a shoddy cut-and-paste job (*) ASP 3.0 is mentioned only in passing with the promise that the author will post new information as it becomes available. Obviously he did not have access to all the betas and release candidates of Windows 2000 put out by Microsoft.

In sum, you can make this a usable book, provided that you try out the examples and ensure that they are bug free. In other words, you do the quality control.

I wonder what the quality control editor for this book has to say...?

The preface (page X) tells us that, as a minimum, (in Windows 95/98) we'll need Personal Web Server, a Web Browser, a text editor, and a db system such as MS Access. This is misleading (nothing about Server Extensions for fp98/2000 or MS IIS). The first sentence in Chapter 4 is outrageous: "As you learned in Chapter 1, the key difference between Active Server Pages code and HTML is that ASP code is always kept on the server." In fact, ASP is barely mentioned in the first three chapters of this book. It's mentioned ONLY on the second line of the first Chapter-a single line in 93 pages. There are many ambiguous references. Even the index is buggy (have a look under "Server object" on page 758). The jacket claims this book is for "Beginning to Advanced" level readers. I don't believe it was actually tested on beginners. Under "Credits" are listed two copy editors, a quality control specialist, and a proofreading and indexing service provider. Makes me wonder if this company (IDG) needs an ethics specialist.

Don't buy this book. I bought it because it looked good upon first blush at the store, and I had been very pleased with Danny Goodman's JavaScript Bible, also by IDG. I have learned the painful lesson that not all books by the same publisher are subject to the same quality control, etc..

As others have noted, the book is full of bugs. For example, in the lengthy app in chapter 12, Smith goes through the code piece by piece, and then the whole app is printed out at the back of the chapter. Nothing really wrong with this in theory and other books do it too, although it is kind of a waste of paper (and the book could have been much smaller, as there are several places where apps were printed out numerous times!). Anyhow, the two code sets are different in some places. For example, the EditRecord subroutine on pages 277, and 291 - it doesn't even work as is on 277 - but will work with the changes on 291. Although it wasn't that hard to fix, the AddRecord subroutine didn't work properly in either printing. There's a few interesting tips here and there, but they aren't worth the money when you consider what you can get elsewhere.

Chapter 18 is called "Integrating Microsoft Transaction Server". I learned, upon reading another book, that MTS is now called "Microsoft Component Services" in W2K. The appendix at the back of the book, "What's new in ASP 3.0" is 8 pages long.

Anyhow, you get the picture. This book is trying to cover ASP 3.0 - doesn't do it - code is full of bugs. It seems to be covering the previous version more than anything else - but I suspect that numerous other older books do this better. I've also purchased Professional Active Server Pages 3.0 from Wrox Press - this is a much, much, better book. Very detailed, and if they don't cover something, they tell you where it is covered. Just what you wanted.

First, let me say that after reading the other reviews listed here I found myself questioning the skill sets of the other reviewers....

This book is very good at what it is attempting to cover - ASP. The book is not entitled "The ADO Bible" or "The SQL Bible". The biggest complaint I often hear about this book is that its coverage of ADO and/or SQL Server is very incomplete. That may be true, but the main topic of the book is not ADO or SQL, it's Active Server Pages and that topic is covered quite completely and accurately.

One reviewer compains in his review that the author (Eric Smith) continuously sets up database connections using the ConnectionString property of a connection object (provider=.....) instead of establishing the DSN as a constant value (DSN=...). Perhaps that reviewer hasn't heard that using OLE DB Providers rather than DSN's is more efficient and gives the developer more control over the resulting connection. The author continuosly does it this way because that's the preferred way of doing it. If the reviewer had read chapter 10, he would have known that. I can't help taking someone's review with a grain of salt when other statements that they make clearly indicate that the reveiwer doesn't know what he/she is talking about!

The ASP object model is covered in great detail with WORKING code examples. The flow of topics through the chapters makes good logical sense (HTML,VBScript, ASP, DB Connectivity, etc.). The material is explained in plain terms (when possible) and insight into the networking aspects of ASP are covered as well. The appendicies are extensive and accuate and include a VERY useful comparison of ASP 2.0 and 3.0.

For those not looking to work with ASP+, this text is a very good introduction to scripting and working with databases using ASP 3.0. It is sadly lacking if you are VERY new to databases, as it does not fully explain the very basics in this area. However, it does go over almost all functions available to the ASP programmer, most of them in detail with good, working examples.

I work primarily with ColdFusion, and I thought I'd give ASP a try for some "lighter" web applications that needed writing. There is a ColdFusion vs. ASP battle raging, and I must say that ASP has its benefits over ColdFusion in some areas.

1. ASP is free, nothing but an IIS server is needed. Compare that with the startup costs for ColdFusion and it's no contest. 2. Most web hosts will offer ASP as a standard feature with their Windows2000/NT hosting options. ColdFusion is usually an expensive option if it is offered at all. 3. All in all, the scripting follows VBScripting and it makes sense.

ASP has it's drawbacks, too... ColdFusion is much easier to pick up from the start, it's not as picky as ASP is. When I first started working with ASP, I found that connecting to the database and working with resulting recordsets was not always easy. Working in ColdFusion with databases, however, is very simple. I thought that this book did not cover database connections and SQL queries very well AT ALL!

All in all this is a good beginner's book for ASP if used in conjunction with good web sites.... After you've used ASP for awhile, this book might collect a little dust on your bookshelf.

I've learned my lesson - don't choose a book by reading the table of contents and flipping through the pages at the bookstore. I wanted a resource to help me familiarize myself with ASP from the ground up - and found this wasn't it.

The first chapter is a basic HTML reference with a single brief statement that ASP integrates with HTML, but no example of how.

The second and third chapters give an overview of VBScript. There is absolutely no mention of how VBScript relates to ASP.

By the time I got to chapter 4 I had still had no idea what an ASP page looks like. I was able to find out by referring to tutorials on the Web, but was left wondering why I paid for this book.

Chapter 4 is on Server-Side Includes. There is detailed information on each directive, but nothing on how to actually use them other than the statement "One other point to note is that none of these directives except for #include will work within ASP files. The directives will only work within files that have extensions configured to be processed through the SSI DLL." I don't know what these extensions might be or what these non-ASP files look like. So I've relied on tedious (and so far unsuccessful) experimentation to figure out how to use them.

I'm hoping the bookstore will allow me to exchange this book for something more useful.

I'll tell you why I give this 5 stars:

Not only does it cover WebClasses, but it does it very well. WebClasses are a compiled ASP project in Visual Basic. You could argue that coverage of this doesn't belong in a book on ASP, but I'm glad it's here.

The very clever trick in listing 17-21 will allow me to reduce my application template processing from thousands of lines to a few dozen. For this, I figure the $40 price was very well worth it.

If it's full of bugs, well - maybe that'll help in practicing debugging :-) I haven't yet tried the discussion forum, but this kind of "non-trivial" example is so much better than what you usually get.

As in so many computer books these days, the appendices are (to me) unnecessary and add to the weight of the book. I have lots of HTML books, so I have no use for appendix B's 50 pages.

I came to this page after seeing this book in the bookstore. I fell in love with it.

I'm not a newcomer to ASP though. I've already read Beginning Active Server Pages 2.0 by Wrox Press. At this point I'm looking for a great reference book and this seems to be it. All the VBScript functions I've ever had to go searching for are all right here.

If so many beginners hate the Bible, then I STRONGLY recommend you check out Beginning ASP. It is full of worthwhile examples and everything is explained clearly and fairly concisely.

If the bible isn't for you, then please, do yourself a huge favour, and buy Beginning Active Server Pages 2.0 by Wrox Press Ltd. You won't be sorry!

I have never been so disappointed in a book as I am in this one. I am fairly new to ASP and ADO and was excited when I found this book. However, as pointed out in the other reviews, this book is one to stay away from.

For one thing, the author repeatedly makes references to the CD-ROM, but as he notes in the editorial review, there is no CD.

I purchased the book mainly for the Integrating With Databases section (Chpts 10-14.) After reading through these 5 chapters, I am more confused than ever. The examples are so full of bugs as to be worthless. For example, in Chpts 11 and 12, in some code segments he uses 'Request()' and others 'Request.QueryString()'. I went to his web page to download the code, and they are nothing similar to what is shown in the book. In the book he uses method=gets and in the online code he uses method=post. Let us hope that the Author (Mr. Smith) reads these reviews and puts the corrected code on his Web page or gets out of the Writing business!

Save your $40 and buy something else! Chalmers

The book is very great and straight forward. I have over 6 books on ASP. This is the best. I'm a Java person but if you want to develop a quick web application this is the book for you. You won't regret it. All the sample codes work. I will buy the author's book next time.