Customer Reviews

Build Your Own ASP.NET Website Using C# & VB.NET

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the first Sitepoint book I have read and the second on ASP.NET.

The book requires that you have either Windows 2000, XP or 2003 installed and requires .NET Framework Redistributable (1.1 is the version the book is written for but most examples should work in v1.0), .NET Framework SDK, IIS (Or Cassini) Web Server, a modern web browser (e.g. IE v5.5+) and an editor. (Anything from notepad to Visual Studio will be sufficient). Access (JET), MSDE and SQL Server are the databases used in the examples. Instructions are included in the book on how to install and configure IIS and how to install MSDE and Access and how to attach the example database.

No previous knowledge of ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, IIS nor databases is required. However you will need to be familiar with HTML before reading the book.

The format of each chapter is a brief, single paragraph introduction, then straight into the subject matter with a brief summary at the end. Throughout the chapters there is a liberal sprinkling of figures and tables and extensive code examples, nearly all of which are in both C# and VB.NET. During the course of the book a complete intranet application is developed which includes a helpdesk, employee store, newsletter archive, employee directory, address book and admin tools.

Pros
Extensive code samples
A complete intranet application is developed within the book.
Superb range of subject matter.
Liberal use of figures and tables.
Excellent layout.
A good tool for learning both C# & VB.NET.

Cons
Topics covered in each chapter are not listed at the beginning of each chapter.
If you are just a VB.NET or C# programmer the duplication of code examples in both VB.NET & C# may prove to be annoying and a waste of space.

Conclusion
My own opinion is that this is not the book for a casual hobbyist but aimed more towards at least a semi-professional developer. You will get more than a basic grounding in ASP.NET but will have to put in a fair bit of effort to extract everything the book has to offer. But what a lot it has to offer. The range of material covered is excellent. Of the many highlights the chapters on Datagrids & DataLists and Datasets were particularly impressive. The author's enthusiasm for ASP.NET shines throughout the book and his narrative style kept many of the duller topics interesting. The pace of the book is never pedestrian and sometimes quite frantic but always leaving you wanting even more.

At the end of the book you should feel confident to develop your own ASP.NET web sites in either C# or VB.NET. This book is another welcome addition to my bookshelf.

If you are looking at learning ASP.NET by hard coding then use this book. If you are looking at developing ASP.NET applications by using all the functionalities of VS.NET then go for ASP.NET KickStart by Stephen Walther.

For beginners I would suggest going for this book since it lets you get into the code which is very essential in understanding how things work in the .NET framework in general and ASP.NET programming in particular.

For intermediate developers (from other fields like Java, Classic ASP etc.) who already know the basics of Web programming and would like to know VS.NET in detail should go for Stephen Walther's book.

This book scores a point more in my opinion since it walks you through building an Intranet application while teaching you to program in ASP.NET.

As an experienced developer with dozens of web sites developed in traditional ASP, I was delighted finally find a decent 'getting started' book for ASP.NET, VB.NET and C# that I could use myself, and share with my Microsoft-oriented students.

Anyone making the leap from ASP to .NET knows how difficult it is to find a resource that covers enough introductory information to get started, while still presenting more advanced and useful topics -- but this is the one!

Although this book won't make you an ASP.NET guru overnight (NO book can!) -- it will certainly get you far enough up the learning curve to start producing some useful and functional code which may be reused and enhanced later as you skills and competence grow.

This new release -- as for all other SitePoint books I've read -- has proven a pleasure to read, and a joy to use in the real world. Great work!

"Build Your Own ASP.NET Website" is a fantastic introduction to ASP.NET. I've read a good number of ASP.NET books over the years, and this is up there with the best. The writing is concise, easy to understand and the examples, especially the PayPal integration, are constructive and informative. One of the few books I've came across that have all the examples in VB.NET and C#, making it easy for someone to chose what language they would like to stick with, instead of what the author prefers

The appendix's will keep this book on my desk. With the most common HTML and Server controls listed, it saves time from trawling through the MSDN documentation that comes with the .NET SDK.

I would strongly recommend this book to any one wanting to learn ASP.NET

I have been developing software for years. I have been programming in VB since 1991 and BASIC since 1978. I know many old languages like Assembly, Fortran and COBOL, but I have been hesitant to take the time to learn the new VB.NET and have figured C# would have been too hard. That is not the case and this book has made it easy. I read some reviews here on Amazon from other developers who thought the book had too much easy things in the first few chapters, but that is what makes it so good. By the end of the book, you are definitely wanting more meat and are ready to buy the next level of learning book, but you know the core of both languages. Although the accompanying website for the book has all of the code for download, I made sure I typed in all of the code. I did VB.NET first, then C#. By the second or third example, I was able to code the C# example without looking at the book from just seeing the VB.NET example. C# is very similar to VB.NET making it VERY EASY to learn. I definitely recommend this book! If you haven't delved into .NET yet, this is absolutely the best first book you could buy. Thihnk of this as the 101 college intro class to .NET. All other books will become easy after you read this one. The book claims that it was written with both the developer and non-developer in mind. I would have to say that I definitely believe a non-developer could follow it and learn the languages.

I am pretty well versed in HTML and Javascript coding. I wanted to learn ASP.NET coding and this book was fantastic. What I liked about it was it taught me by walking me through building an actual website from beginning to end.

Each chapter deals with a different subject that builds on what you learned in the previous chapters. After the author lists the code, he goes over every line and explains what each one does and why. This was fantastic as you get to see the code twice and really get it ingrained in your head.

I would suggest this book to anyone new to ASP.NET as it has really given me a good grasp of the technology. Now I need to find a more advanced book to further my skills.

This book clearly targets the individual who has had little or no software development experience, working from the ground up, covering the basics necessary to build a dynamic web site using ASP.NET technologies.

Some of the topics are not grouped correctly, e.g., control and page events are in the C# & VB.NET programming basics chapter when they are more appropriate in the ASP.NET basics chapter. And I think, at best, there is only a cursory coverage of programming (object-oriented programming in particular), but it is likely sufficient for the purpose at hand.

All in all, I think that the target audience (designers and scripters) is well-chosen, and those in that category should be able to build low-end dynamic web applications that suffice for many situations. I would recommend it to that audience because it does provide more than sufficient information on the mechanics of ASP.NET application development; however, I would not recommend it for professional developers or those wanting to become such because the coverage of professional development concepts is too simplistic and best practices are not addressed.

I am an asp programmer. And I would like to transform myself into asp.net. after trying one title after another by reading the PDF files that I found on the net, I thought I found the right book ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed from Stephen Walther. I bought the book and learned from it. But I got stuck somewhere after the basic controls. The author assumes that the reader is either intermediate or advanced level with the .NET programming skill. I am not at that level yet. Again I went back to find other PDF files and I found this one and I knew this was the perfect fit for me. I bought the book and I am very happy with this book. it teaches asp.net 2.0 from beginning level. It explains in details all the basic knowleges that an asp.net programmer needs to know. Then it moves on to ado.net. But all these are just basics only. not going too far into advanced level. One thing that I like is that I build the project while learning. There are minor wording error. If you don't know programming, then this is the problem. If you already know programming (VB,C#), then you can see the wording error and correct yourself.
If you are looking for a book that set you up from start with .NET, this one is the right one. If you already have the basic of asp.net and would like to get to the advanced level, then you may be disappointed.

An absolutely terrific book for those of us new to ASP.NET (either 1.1 or 2.0). The book covers ASP.NET 2.0 and uses all the freely available VS.NET-based tools from Microsoft like Visual Web Developer 2005 Express and SQL Server 2005 Express. I come from a J2EE/Tomcat/JBoss background but this book really opens up the .NET world for those of us who are not initiated in the ASP.NET way to build web applications. They spend the 1st 4 chapters using a plain text editor to show the basics of ASP.NET page creation and hooking up virtual directories for the project files. Chapter 5 and beyond dive into the use of Visual Web Developer 2005 Express and the creation of a fully working web site deployed onto IIS. I am only 1/3 of the way there but so far the writing style and coverage provide an excellent presentation of the material.

I needed a fast tutorial for ASP.NET. If a person wants a great accurate tutorial this is the one. I think the prerequisites to using this book are: intermediate VB.Net Skills, Familiarity with IIS setup; intermediate SQL server skills.

I used Visual Studio.NET 2003 to work through the examples just to help with the typing of HTML code. Using Visual Studio, the user must watch out for HTML Visual Studio likes to add automatically. The added HTML can really mess up the tutorial out come.

It was a little painful going through the exercises but that's the nature of the technology (HTML) and learning a new technology in general. The user learns a great deal by fixing the errors that pop up.

The printing date of the book I received was February 2005 and it contains all the corrections and errata from the book's support website.