Customer Reviews

Mastering Active Server Pages 3

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

 

 

Thirty chapters of very well taught material. The first half of the book is a very clear introduction to the ASP environment and how to use the intrinsic objects. The second covers other scripting objects, ADO, MTS, XML and how to plan your web site for scalability. The many code examples on the CD are concise, efficient, and scalable. I refer to them frequently. Although the book contains many examples of accessing databases through ADO in VBScript, he points out that this kind of thing is done much more efficiently in a COM component. He shows how to build VB COM components and how to use them in MTS through ASP. Most of the code is in VBScript; however, the surprising inclusion of JScript client side scripting and XML client and server side programming make for a very pleasant and well rounded learning experience. After bringing it to work, two coworkers also ordered it. I cannot think of a better recommendation than that.

I was a raw beginner to ASP when I bought this book, I couldn't even read and write to a text file. This book covers starts at the very beginning with HTML and develops into scripting and then into ASP itself.

It is an excellent reference tool. It covers the ASP Objects (Request, Response, Sessions, etc.) and succinctly covers the methods and properties by listing them in charts and exampling the fundamental use of the Objects using code samples.

This book also covers CDONTS, which is an Object that can be used to send email via ASP code. CDONTS comes with IIS 4.0 or better. As well as several other optional Objects that ship with IIS.

Want to connect to an Access Database? No problem, this book covers the ADODB Object and also covers rudimentary SQL to construct queries. There is also an Instant Reference available from the same author that is handy, when you don't want to lug around a big book!

This is a great overall book. I had a solid background in HTML, JavaScript, ect, and had done just a couple of things when I bought this.

It's great to learn key concepts as well as to find the syntax for what you want to do. I've used several other asp books, namly the wrox beg and advanced, and I prefer this one.

Even though the book's huge, I still have to look stuff up in other books or online, but that's to be expected. I wish he went into sql a little more.

Recommended.

This is not a bad book, however, there are better ones out there. The author assumes absolutely no previous programing experience and therefore even includes a HTML tutorial, which is unnecessary in my opinion. Why would you get into ASP if you don't even know basic HTML? Moreover, the examples provided are too far removed from reality. The author just piles on the different objects, requests etc. without giving evidence of them being actually useful in real life. This book is more of a reference than anything else. For actually starting ASP, I'd rather recommend "Sams teach yourself ASP in 21 days", supplemented by Wrox's "Beginning ASP databases" if you're into more serious development.

Well, if you are looking for frustration this book will help you to experience plenty of it! The sample code is really bad. The examples are also incomplete. It seems that the goal of this book was thickness not accuracy. It's possible to read 10-12 pages just to learn almost nothing. Too much worthless filler....I was hoping that I would learn more than just how much anger I can feel towards a book....

Although this book is thorough in covering all topics surrounding ASP, the examples and sample code are of little help. The sample code is TERRIBLY error prone and nearly every page requires some debugging. Once the applications are working, they are basic and offer little insight into intermediate web development.

Very readable and useful. This is the most complete ASP book I've read so far. Unlike many ASP books, it doesn't just rehash the on-line documentation. It covers everything you need--VBScript, JavaScript, ADO, using and building COM components, MTS/COM+ and even shows you how to get started with XML.

This text did teach me some things, but the author did not comment his code. He sometimes wrote sample code that spanned 3 or 4 pages and did not comment the code or explain what he wrote in detail. I am a beginner to ASP but not to VB and he over programs and uses too many intricate functions that no programmer could quickly understand WITHOUT COMMENTS.

This book is poorly organized. The author starts out by saying that one does not have to be a programmer and then immediately launches into PERL, CGI, ADO, VB, etc. How many non-programmers know about ADO providers. On administering IIS, he states that one can use the web browser. But, you will get a message from Microsoft that this can only be done if one is running Windows SERVER 2000. A hundred pages or more are devoted to learning HTML and another 100 to VB Script. If I wanted to learn HTML, I would get a book on HTML. Happy to say that the bookstore refunded my purchase, but still angry that I wasted two hours reading it and then returning it.

For the ASP neophyte, Mastering ASP 3 is a poor effort. While the book does cover many of the ASP basics, it does it in such a way that beginners have very little understanding of what and how the various lessons can actually be used in real web applications. The text is long, difficult to read, and there are several chapters where you complete a chapter feeling that you haven't learned anything of practical value.

While, I'm sure that it is possible to learn ASP from this book, I'm equally sure that there are other books out there that will allow you to learn in a faster, easier, and with less confusion.

I'd recommend the Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 from Wrox for those who are interested in a better organized, more practical way to learn ASP.