Customer Reviews

Instant ASP.NET Applications(with CD)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the fourth "Instant ASP" book (others being Instant ASP Scripts, ASP Components and the ASP Developers Guide) that I have purchased by the author Greg Buczek. I find that each book is invaluable in my application development and as a reference source. If you want to get into the nuts and bolts of how ASP.NET works, then buy a WROX book. If you want instant code to build your ASP.NET applications quickly, this is the book.

It gives plenty of examples and sample code that works. As a lot of the code is repetitive (e.g. making the connection to a data source, using the data grid, or the calendar control, etc.), it really drives home the concepts and helps in understand how ASP.NET works. I am sure that Greg may not like me telling this but he actually responses to emailed questions sent to him about his code. I have built many full blown application using sample code in Greg's "Instant" books. Now I can build them using ASP.NET.

I had an ASP.NET application that I needed to get going quick. I knew a little about ASP but nothing about ASP.NET. This book, through its numerous examples showed me how to create excellent ASP.NET applications.

The author shows you how to use ASP.NET through sample applications that really work! His coverage on the vast ASP.NET controls and database connectivity was outstanding.

Thank you Mr. Buczek!

This book comes with dozens of useful, not trivial applications for ASP.NET web applications. I enjoyed the book and each example made me sit down and learn more about ASP.NET. The entire book is well organized and keeps you hungry for the next example. The source practically ran right off the CD. I did have a little trouble with one or two examples, but there were dozens that required me to simply create the database table. I definately recommend this book to ASP.NET Developers.

I own copies of several of Greg's previous books for one reason. He writes about creating applications NOW and he writes in a style that I find very friendly and accomodating; that is, he doesn't assume that I know everything about the product and related software before I read the book. This book is full of good examples that can be used - as you are writing code. The examples are well-developed and easily adaptable to other types of applications. The information presented is very readable. Thanks for another great book, Greg! You're actually helping me get my job done - and I need that!

If you want to learn to write spaghetti code buy the book. This book is really a regurgitation of the first one written for ASP. The author demonstrates very little knowledge of the new OBJECT ORIENTED language that VB.NET has become which s a far cry from ASP (Hint: The original book). Additionally, this so called application might be useful if you need a website with very few visitors certainly not enterprise strength or NTier. I feel this book WILL send those new to ASP.NET in the wrong path. Inline coding is out the window with .net.
If you are looking for a book that is enterprise strength (maybe not a starter), try ASP.NET Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution
by Marco Bellinaso, Kevin Hoffman by Wrox. They have one for vb.net and another one for c#. I purchased both which allows me to compare languages as well.

I see five stars for this book, and wonder how anyone who has compared this book to other books on the market can rate it this high. My guess is the use needed to develop the same type of application as presented in the book, and was glad the application was easily completed with copy and paste. Rather than focus on that, I will tell my own personal beefs.

On the positive side, this tome has great shelf presence. Wieghing in at over 1k of pages, gives it a great thunk factor (the sound the book makes when it hits the desk). This is deceiving, however, as the book uses a rather large font and contains copious code samples, which stretch it out farther. I am not saying that there is not a lot of content, just that this book would have been a lot smaller with some publisher's font selection.

Also positive is the fact that the writer does use Codebehind files for some of the content. I applaud this, as so many books on ASP.NET fail in this department. It is hard to determine that CodeBehind is used in many of the pages until you look at the code on the CD.

If you plan on learning from this book, you will most likely be disappointed. Admitedly, that is not the focus, so I am not deducting anything for this factor. There is the obligatory introductory material, but it is largely a reference on controls.

My biggest beef is much of the material is a lesson in how to drag and drop in Visual Studio .NET, or, rather, that the only thing you need to do for much of the code listings is drag and drop. If you are using the .NET Framework, sans Visual Studio .NET, you may actually type in the code, and prove me wrong.

I also have a problem that a great deal of the code is not completely in line with best practices. Like most ASP.NET books, the main thrust is writing ASP.NET much like ASP, which is not the best way to enter the .NET world.

A large portion of the book is aimed at E-Commerce sites, although many of the examples can apply somewhere else. While I have some disagreements with some of the methodology used here, I can see where a person needing an E-Commerce site, or at least some of the same types of pages as a fictional E-Commerce site, can get a lot of value from this book. As such, I am rating it slightly below average, as I see some utilitarian value. I would say this is actually about 2.5 stars, if I were allowed to go in half stars.

I just wish I would have know that all of the examples use VB.NET to power the applications. It doesn't really matter if you already know VB, or if you want to. But if you are more familiar with C# make sure and buy a book that specifies the language.

The book has excellent applications for use in everyday problems where I work. I have used many of them in my re-design of my company's website. I only wish there was a better message board application, but that is only a small issue compared with all of the other great code contained inside.
Thanks for a great book, Greg. I am waiting on Instant ASP.NET version 2!

This is the book you need not only deploy apps quickly, but also to learn the .NET language more efficiently. I also own other books by Greg, Instant ASP Components (A Very Nice Book). The examples within this book (Instant ASP.NET applications) are well written and easy to tailor to your own applications needs.

I don't use and I don't plan on using Visual Studio.NET to develop ASP.NET applications. I think it is way too weighty and pricey for what it offers. Instant ASP.NET did it for me. It showed me using so many different applications how to create ASP.NET without having to have VS.NET. That is a great plus. You can do so much using any text editor. The book covered stuff like creating a sports site, using email, banner ads, visitor tracking, school pages, bookmarks, chat, job boards and tons more.

The book is well worth the money. This is the stuff that you never learn in a class or pick up from other books.