Customer Reviews

Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 in C#: From Novice to Professional (Novice to Professional)

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

 

 

This is simply the best book I've found for starting out with ASP.NET from a C# perspective, and I plan to use it to teach ASP.NET in the classroom. In my opinion, there are three things that put this book head and shoulders above the rest:

1) Clear explanations of WHY things work the way they do. For example, the detailed walkthrough of the postback architecture is essential for ASP.NET newcomers.
2) Lots of good recommendations and examples. The chapter of component development is a particularly good example. In a relatively small space, the author covers stateless design, describes the "ideal" component, and outlines common design issues that programmers face in real world situations, all without getting too complex or using more than a couple of paragraphs of code at a time. The IBuySpy walkthrough it another great example.
3) It has a little bit of everything. This book won't send the newbiew to other books in the first few pages. It covers "just enough" OOP, Visual Studio, and even a little bit of custom controls and dynamic graphics (GDI+).

This book is my new ASP.NET standard.

This is a tome sized introduction to ASP.NET using C#. It goes from installation, through the C# language, into web forms and control, database access, web services and into advanced topics like caching, security and component building. And all of that is stuffed into a one thousand page frame.

As you can imagine, some of the material is a little short. For example the coverage of C#, which is intended for beginners, is a mere 50 pages. Other sections, like those on web controls, and the references at the end, are well apportioned to the topic.

The database section has significant technical flaws. It uses string construction to inject GET and POST variables into the SQL statement. This is an anti-pattern which can lead to bugs, SQL injection attacks, and poor cache performance. Do not use the SQL construction techniques in this book

The book also overuses screenshots and is light on architectural illustrations.

There are some good parts. The chapter on XML is excellent, as is the one on security. The latter is ironic as the SQL code is vulnerable to injection attacks.

There is some quality reference material at the end of the book, but it is not as well organized as O'Reilly books.

Overall I think this is a reasonable introduction to ASP.NET. You will need other books to fill out the rough spots. But for someone who already knows a language like Java this would be an ideal way to see the corresponding ASP.NET methodology at a high level.

If you want to make dynamic web pages and your machine is running .NET, then perhaps the best way is to use Active Server Pages. This actually predates .NET. But with the rise of .NET and its main language, C#, MacDonald shows how ASP.NET 1.1 has gained in power and ease of use.

He takes 1000 pages to show this. Because Microsoft now offers a huge amount of functionality in ASP.NET and extensive integration into .NET. Like how Visual Studio can [should?] be used as your IDE to write C# code for your ASPs. By the way, despite what Microsoft has touted about how you have a choice of programming languages if you use .NET, it has become increasingly clear, via this book and others, that C# is the de facto choice.

Chapters 7, 9, 10 and 11 are probably the key sections of the book. These actually focus on coding the ASP. And of these, chapter 10, on state management, may be the focal point, if you consider a set of ASPs as a finite state machine. So if you want to quickly learn ASPs, try concentrating on those chapters.

And also follow the advice by a previous reviewer about the security flaws in the book, especially in SQL injection, using strings that have not been checked.

I didn't know much about ASP.NET and C#, although I have done some junior-level programming projects with other languages. Based on rave reviews, I originally tried Jesse Liberty's Programming ASP.NET book, but I could not digest that book due to its lack of gradual buildup, lack of connecting ideas, and obscure examples.

Matthew MacDonald's book "Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 in C#: From Novice to Professional," on the other hand, is very well-suited for a beginning programmer. As with many other beginner's language books, he covers the C# language syntax and common ASP.NET controls. However, he covers advance topics such as state management and caching.

He also covers ancilliary topics such as Visual Studio explanations, files that make up a VS Solution or project (i.e. what is web.config?), and setting up your computer to run ASP.NET.

He writes in a way that is easy to follow, and his examples are not obscure, but straightforward. He focuses primarily on the chapter at hand, so you get the sense that he is teaching you in discrete steps. Each subsequent chapter, he adds on top of what you know from previous chapters. His code examples and explanation remain within the context of the current or previous chapters. He doesn't use code in his examples that does not pertain to the current or previous chapters, nor does he talk about things in later chapters other than an informative cross-referencing parenthetical (i.e. "For more information about this topic, see Chapter X").

I also like his diagrams on the ADO.NET model and the .NET architecture. These diagrams won't give you in-depth information, but they illustrate how the parts work at a high level. I didn't get this in other books, including the O'Reilly ones.

Because of his explanations, for example, I finally understand the basic ADO.NET operational model. Set a Connection object, then Set a Command object, and then choose between a DataReader object (for read-only data) or a DataAdapter object (disconnected read-write data). The O'Reilly Programming ASP.NET book and other ASP.NET books don't explain this clearly and often used DataAdapter or DataReader interchangeably in their examples.

Altogether, his writing and delivery style is very well-paced to me. I am not overwhelmed.

There are few downsides to this book. After a certain point in the book, he stops giving full example code, but he tells you why he is doing this (you can download the full code from his website). He only highlights the core code needed to demonstrate the topic. I still wish he used the full code examples in later chapters, because I generally type the code to get practice. By downloading code, I don't absorb the material as easily. Of course, that would make the book longer.

As for the criticisms of SQL injection by other reviewers, I agree that it is bad, but this is also a beginner's book. I'm sure he chose this format to teach the idea of database access and manipulation. However, he does talk about SQL injection attacks on page 431 in the ADO.NET access section. He discusses the topic for about a page, so it doesn't provide much detail, but it does serve as a cautionary note to the reader. I'm sure you can read other books to get more information on how to secure your web form from attacks.

Being a beginner's book, he covers a lot in the 1,000 pages in a jack-of-all-trades style, but it probably won't cover issues veteran programmers might be most interested. In fact, veteran programmers will find this book superfluous in some chapters, such as a 50-page tutorial on the C# language. For C# beginners, the chapter on the C# language may not be enough. You're not going to find all the answers here, but there is definitely enough information to get you started and for further research.

Lastly, I've contacted the author a few times with questions about the topics in his book, and he answered them in a friendly way. It's nice having an approachable author, even though I know the author has a busy schedule.