Customer Reviews

Beginning ASP.NET Using VB.NET

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have been developing ASP pages for 4 or so years. I have done some VB in that time. I came into the web from the front end, design and continue to work my way backwards. I found this book filled with very easy to understand explanations on what is .Net and how I need to adjust for the new way of doing things. I think you could pick up this book without much background in ASP but I do believe a basic understanding of classic ASP will make the learning curve on this book faster. I would deeply suggest start with this book instead of the Professional one, for this walks you though the basics but also fills in details that even more advance developer miss from time to time.

I have read a ton of books in the last 5 or 6 years and this one is up at the top for easy learning and great basic details. This book will give you the information to do 95% of the daily task of developing and the last 5% you will get from the Professional Book. Yes the Professional book keys off the large scalable web sites which you will need to learn but like most of us, we all start a new technology on a smaller scale to see how it works and then tackle the larger jobs later.

.Net will be one of the most needed skill in a year or so, learn it now and be ahead of the curve and you will see a higher pay check too.

Excellent Reading...

This volume is suited to the beginner and is therefore a fairly simple book to work through. A desirable prerequisite, while not mandatory, would be some basic HTML web page development experience using both Forms and Tables. A previous knowledge of ASP is not a requirement.

The book provides a good introduction into coding many areas of ASP.NET without delving too much into the Microsoft .NET Framework itself. It uses the WROX style of "Try It Out" to get you used to the code, followed by a detailed explanation and description of "How It Works".

The experienced classic ASP developer will find little of interest in the first few chapters but it is an easy read and you can quickly move through it concentrating on areas of interest. Having said that if you haven't done much OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) then you should review Chapters 8 and 9 as the entire .NET Framework is based on objects. If you've been working on ASP for some time and already have a basic understanding of how ASP.NET operates then you should look to a more advanced book such as "Professional ASP.NET" also by WROX.

The only negative I found was that it has more than the customary level of typos but I personally don't believe it detracted that much. The errata on the WROX site should be downloaded to indicate the more important publishing errors.

In summary, this book is targetted at beginners. As an experienced web developer I found it an easy read and gave me the opportunity to refresh some of the knowledge I hadn't used recently while giving me a quick INTRO into the .NET version of ASP.

I thought that this book provided exactly what the title says. If you've been down this path before(meaning, having to pick up a book to get you up to speed with a project) then this is a good place to start, following up with "Professional ASP.NET" and "Professional VB.NET", both Wrox titles as well. For those who complain about theory, go to your local university and enroll in a class. For those who need bottomline results, like most of the "run and gun" type positions that most techies have then this is it. Even if you've done ASP or VB before and have stepped away from it for awhile, this book is a great refresher. Gone are the days of specializing technically in one or two areas. Most of us have to be all things to all people and it is a pleasure to be able to have a goto resource when we have to revisit or learn a new technology. Wrox has been and still is that all important resource. By the way, the typos aren't that bad, anf if that's all you can focus on, then no book can help you.

We used this book for a class that we were running for work. I would say that it is a decent book considering the time it was written, but now there should be better books out there. It doesn't cover code behind until very late in the book which is a fundamental improvement that should've been covered much earlier. Also, there are some errors in this book that are not addresses in the eratta, and the Visual Studio .NET IDE is not covered in this book. The authors use archaic techniques to do things that a VS .NET developer would do in the IDE, like compiling a library file via the command prompt instead of using the IDE to make that library file. Also, it could use some more information in Web Services since this seems to be the main way that Microsoft wants you to create Enterprise solutions.

As an ASP developer of 2 solid years, with a little VB6 experience, I was wary and hesitant to begin learning VB.NET but ready for the challenge. I picked this book up mainly to get a good feel for the syntax and techniques ASP.NET offers. And having gone through almost 18 of the 19 chapters so far, I have to say this book is a great place to start if you need a crash course in ASP.NET as I did.

That being said, I do have a couple of warnings for possible buyers and readers:

1. Grammatical errors and typos abound. In general, you can figure out the correct spelling and meaning, though some of them may through you off briefly.

2. The myriad of authors do not use a uniform approach in naming and coding conventions. Once you get used to a certain chapter's style, the next chapter will do it differently. For an advanced book this could slide, but I don't think it's instructive in a beginner's book.

Yet despite these two problems, this book will get your feet wet enough to begin your venture into ASP.NET. If you're like me, you'll be buying some advanced books. I've bought Professional ASP.NET 1.0 Special Edition (ISBN: 1861007035) and Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET (ISBN: 0672321262). But there are a myriad of websites you can utilize to further your knowledge after this book. I don't think I could have progressed into the advanced topics, or learned by piecemeal examples on said websites, without the foundation this book builds.

Being an experienced developer, this book was a little too basic for me; however it still covered items that I needed to familiarize my self with in my transition form asp to asp.net.
The examples in this book were well written and every step was explained. I actually like the way the examples are set up in this book better then the next book in this series (Professional ASP.Net 1.0). Unlike other books I have read in the past, EVERY EXAMPLE PROGRAMM IN THIS BOOK WORKED!
I would highly recommend this book to any one who is interested in developing in ASP.NET.

This is one of the best Wrox titles on ASP/ASP.NET for beginners. Even though, I wrote ASP and ASP.NET for a few years now, it is still good as a refresher. Sure, a few things on .NET Framework especially, are not explained in detail, but its a beginner book. Plus, I loved that it does less advertising of MS .NET and goes straight to coding. Definite recommend.

Even after years of developing on standard ASP, I've never been a true object-oriented programmer. For that reason, I started with the pro book and got totally lost.

This book is good for people who don't have that object-oriented experience. The book spends two or three chapters just on that, which is good if you've never touched something like C++ or Java.

The only real problem with the book is that it doesn't seal the deal with a strong reference. For that, a combination of the Pro ASP.NET and the programmers reference from Wrox make good companions.

While I have historically been a Wrox Press fan (12+ books thusfar), this book deviates from the usual quality and is overall a complete disappointment.

I reviewed this book as an experienced developer seeking .NET materials for my staff. The approach to major topics is suitable for fledgling developers and is generally well stated. However, the overall lack of editing quality - in the form of numerous typos, dangling sentence fragments, and incorrect code references - is likely to frustrate rather than encourage.

Perhaps a future, revised edition will clear these mistakes, but the lack of diligence on apprentice material leaves me to consider alternative publishers for "growth path" books.

I've been a Wrox Press devotee for a couple of years now and have purchased over a dozen of their Web dev books for their quality. I was eagerly awaiting this "Beginning" title after their incredible releases "Beginning ASP Databases" and "Beginning XML." However, I am a little disappointed in this book for these reasons:

The first 6 chapters assume you know almost nothing about Web development and in some cases even walk you through beginning HTML examples. This is a real drag and a waste of space if you've been coding for the Web at all. I think the entire book should have been devoted to "Beginning ASP.Net" as the title claims and not to "Web Development 101."

The book has several typos and errors in it and in at least a few cases, the sample code just plain doesn't work.

The final 7-8 chapters which actually focus on asp.net do provide many helpful examples, but I don't think they were as clear as they could have been. I often found myself posting the sample code to newsgroups and using MSDN for explanations not outlined in the book.