I guess maybe my assumptions about what this book is supposed to do were off, because while I found it helpful, I didn't find it to be very useful.
My assumption was that there would be how to's in the book that would guide me through the process of building a website and then publishing it. While the book gives you information "ABOUT" doing that, it is very light on the "HOW" to do it. The information is there, but it seems I had to struggle to find it as the book is more "ABOUT WHAT" various features and property settings should be used and how they act, but little in the way of "the complete picture", leaving a novice to figure it (a lot) out on their own.
The first 3 chapters are great, the 4th is ok but long and again, it is all about what DNN is and what the various properties are and setting up permissions using roles and groups. Unfortunately, from chapter 5 forward, the book, when needing to deliver more step-by-step information about how to build the first site, it assumes way too much and leaves the reader scratching their head about when I am going to get to step 1. The problem is, there is not step 1, or step 2 for that matter. If you look at most technical books, especially those addressing those with no prior programming experience, you would expect to be guided through step 1, step 2, step 3 and so forth, that is the general method in which the "HOW" to do something is delivered, this book doesn't do that when it needs to. Not to say it ever does it, but it is missing the mark 90% of the time and when it does use the step-by-step method, it seems unusual, especially since it wasn't used prior.
The delivery of roles and groups was a huge missed opportunity as it is explained as a feature, but never put into play when building the websites; instead the user is given a recommendation and told to reference the materials in chapter 4, where it was already discussed. In fact, roles and groups was not the only place that was done, that was done several times throughout the book, when the most helpful scenario would have been to reiterate what was already discussed, as showing you why is usually followed up by showing you how, or even vice versa.
Another issue was many of the screen shots in the book showed different terminology then the application showed for many of the features. While they weren't show stoppers, they did cause me to slow down repeatedly as I looked for what I was doing and trying to find the correct view. Has the software changed? Were the screen shots wrong? I don't know...
I also found the book didn't do a good job of explaining what I needed to do to install all of the modules that come with the application. The book tells you to place the blog and the gallery modules on the page, but I needed to go to the extensions module to install them. The explanation is there in the grey highlighted box, but the information is sounding like it was just some random information, not that it was necessary for the coming... hmmm... I want to exercises, but they weren't that, so let's say information. By the way, I never found the gallery and when you get to building the small business site, the store modules are not available either. Now is this a DNN issue or a book issue? I don't know, but those modules were not available as installable modules, so a couple of more lost opportunities for features that most would really want to learn.
My last gripe is the "other reviews"; I'll just say if you look at the 4 reviews for this book, all of the reviewers have ever only reviewed this book, with the exception of 1 guy who has reviewed only 3 DNN books, ever. I thought maybe I was a bit too skeptical, but then I noticed the 5 reviews for the book titled "Professional DotNetNuke 5: Open Source Web Application Framework for ASP.NET". Draw your own conclusion.
All in all, DNN is a great CMS package with great features and capabilities, but this book won't get you nearly as far as you need to even competently deploy your first site without much more work and learning from other sources.
Should you buy this book, well, if you really want to learn this tool, you really don't have much of a choice if you learn best from a book since this is currently the only one out there and probably the only one to be published anytime soon. Just don't' expect it to be all you need to deploy your first site. You'll learn a lot, but you'll do it in an awkward manner that will leave you feeling like you know a lot "ABOUT" the DNN without feeling like you know "HOW" to do it.
2.5 stars
