Customer Reviews

Murach's ASP.NET Web Programming with VB.NET

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a teacher of ASP.NET, I have tried several textbooks. I always like a textbook that supplements my teaching rather than dictates it. Murach's ASP.NET does just that and is an excellent book for teaching web programming because of its format.

The left-hand page explains a particular concept while the right-hand page illustrates the concept with code snippets that are easy to understand. My students get frustrated trying to sift through long sample programs to find the few lines of code that illustrate a given point. With Murach's code snippets, the code is easy to understand.

The authors also use code-behind instead of embedding code via the ASP.OLD style. Not many books do that, thus giving this book a rich, more modern approach to the way ASP.NET programming should be done.

The more I read this book, the better it gets.

I recently got hold of a copy of this book (full title: "Murach's ASP.Net Web Programming with VB.Net") and it is terrific. In particular, it includes the best walkthrough and problem solver of using IIS I've yet seen - and I know from the Forums that this very early step causes a lot of people a heap of problems. (Me included at one time! )

The book uses a technique of having the main narrative on the left hand page, backed up by important summaries and/or diagrams on the right hand page. This can be quite useful for reinforcing those particularly tricky areas and is handy for flipping back to when you need to recheck something. Overall, I think it works great.

Simply said: One of the best books I have ever bought!

I needed to dive into ASP.NET pretty fast because I had a project running to its deadline. I was a programmer who knew Visual Basic and Delphi pretty well. I did know the theory of ASP.NET but had no practical experience. This book teached me in a record time how to build and get my first web application up and running.

The best starter's book you can imagine. The second book I bought on the subject was ASP.NET Unleashed, which is a marvellous book if you have some ASP.NET experience.

For a beginner Murach's book is simply a dream, and although I have written a couple of web applications now, I still use it as a quick reference. WORTH EVERY PENNY IN GOLD.

The book is a good reference for either beginnner or expert ASP.NET developer. It has the depth and provides a very detailed description of several aspects of ASP.NET, covers all major topics - controls, validators, state management, session, security, ADO.NET programming and simple HTML tutorial. The weakness is not a deep presentation of VB.NET, web services, XML, .NET framework in general.

Murach's ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET by Doug Lowe and Anne Prince is a in depth training and reference book for ASP.NET programming using VB.NET. The book builds upon Murach's previous books Murach's beginning visual basic .NET and Murach's VB.NET database programming and covers more advanced concepts for programming ASP.NET pages. The book covers the use of session states, cookies, database classes, object classes, user validation controls, application state, developing user controls, the crystal reports viewer and security. As with the previous books in the series the book is very complete. The only fault I can find is the failure to include instructions on how to use Access databases and XML files as data sources. While that topic was covered very well in the database book it would have been nice to have a brief overview of the subject specifically for ASP.NET applications.
The book is written in the same style as the previous two books I have reviewed which makes it easy to learn and useful after as a reference. All the code is well documented with syntax explained in full prior to the code being used. In each segment of the book the complete code for the application you are working on is included even if it was originally introduced several chapters earlier. There are errors in the book and the website has an addendum for those. I did manage to find an error that was not already noted though on page.
This book enabled me to write custom websites for two customers which is exactly what I wanted it to help me with. The sections that assisted the process the most for me where the ones on web application security and database classes. No previous book did such an excellent job of demonstrating how to do those two things.
Overall I give this book a 9 out of 10 with one point being deducted for not including some examples on how to use XML files or Access databases as data sources for web pages.

As a MS RD I read a lot of programming books. To be honest I don't get into a lot of them, but I always read Murach's and so far I've never been disappointed. This publication, Murach's ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET provides a fantastic foundation for a range of readers with different programming capabilities. I have some employees that are relatively new to ASP.NET who have found the book to be an invaluable resource, but I have also found that some of my more experienced programmers are 'borrowing' it.

I like the layout which sees examples on the right and explanations on the left. The chapters follow a logical path and flow nicely, starting with simple application examples and moving to the more complicatied ones. There are no less than 23 complete application examples for your learning pleaseure! For my part I was more interested in the later more technical topics such as Web Services.

As a bonus for those who are new to Visual Studio there are plenty of tips on how to get around. I would reccommend this book to beginner to intermediate ASP.NET programmers, although all levels will find it to be an invaluable reference.

With 12 years in software development, and just completing an ADO .NET course I can truthfully say this book will get you up to speed fast and creating a fully functioning ASP .NET web site using SQL Server and ADO .NET.

I have purchased and sold some of the "Learn ASP .NET in 24 hours, 24 days", ect... That just could not teach this topic.

The publisher's web site has downloads for all the code from this book, and two free chapters. They layout of this book is excellent.

The book covers..

· ADO.NET
· Disconnected Data Access, Datasets, data tables
· Managing State (5 ways)
· User Controls
· Cookies
· Data Grids
· Authentication/Security

Great choice for someone who wants to get up and running fast, or to use as a reference.

You will need more information on ADO.NET that this book does not cover in enough detail such as updating databases, and custom grid paging. Buy Microsoft's ADO.NET Core Reference ISBN: 0-7356-1423-7 (no doubt the best book on ADO.NET)

Before trying to learn Visual Basic.Net, I had very little
experience with object oriented programming, other than
writing an Excel timesheet application in Visual Basic for
Applications, which I would call Object Oriented Lite.
I had tried to teach myself Visual Basic several years ago, but I
never did understand it very well.

I felt there was a need at my company for a standardized
programming environment which could be used for both
Windows desktop and web applications. I started purchasing
book after book that covered VB.Net and ASP.Net,
but I didn't feel quite ready to tackle my first program.

Then I came across Murach's beginning Visual Basic.Net
and Murach's ASP.Net. I felt for the first time
that I had all of the pieces I needed to put together
a complete application, and I felt I had the confidence
to start working on a program that I could call my own that
could actually save somebody some time and effort.

I started working on an ASP.Net program to automate
our Employee Expense Reimbursement form so I could
put to use many of the .Net features I have learned.
I never really expected that anybody would actually
use it. To make a long story short, one of the people
from our finance department asked for a demo of the
program and they want to have our employees start
using it as soon as we can get our server ready.

So, I would highly recommend these two books for
the library of anyone who is serious about learning
Visual Basic.Net and ASP.Net.

Before purchasing this book, you should know that the author expects you to have been exposed to the skills taught in Murach's Beginning Visual Basic.Net.

Having said that, this book is written in an easy-to-follow format that led me step-by-step toward the skills needed to become the most knowledgeable ASP.Net developer on my team. It hits every subject I've been exposed to at work, making it an excellent reference as well. This book also helped me to strengthen my object-oriented development knowledge.

One of the biggest advantages of this book over others is that it taught me how to develop using Microsoft Visual Studio ("VS"). Unfortunately, learning ASP.Net using Notepad instead of VS is like learning to drive using a go-cart instead of a car. Almost all employers expect their .Net developers to know their way around VS. With this book, you're covered.

I make no secret of being a fan of Murach books. This is the 3rd Murach book I have read and it doesn't disappoint. Murach books have a distinctive feel about them because of the way they are layed out. Every left hand page is a narrative and every right hand page contains diagrams and bullet points relating to the narrative. This is a format that works for me, especially in the more involved chapters where the narrative can be read and then the important points revisited on the facing page. These bullet points are also useful for using the book for reference in the weeks and months after initially reading it.The book uses IIS as the web server, MSDE as the database and the Visual Basic IDE as the development environment. The format of most chapters is to introduce new topics or expand on topics previously introduced and then towards the end of the chapter show how these concepts are used in the example web application the book uses.

Pros
The space in margins for making notes.

The print is clear and there are plenty of diagrams and figures to supplement the text.
The format of the book.
The availability of a full working web site featured in the book that can be downloaded from Murach's web site
The information in the book is accurate with the few errors being highlighted at Murach's web site.

Cons
The book exclusively deals with developing ASP.NET using Visual Studio and does not cover developing ASP.NET applications using Web Matrix
Sometimes the points made were a little labored and could be more succinct.
No reference was made to objects such as request.servervariables.

Conclusion
Overall the pros easily out weigh the cons. This book is ideal for someone looking to learn ASP.NET from scratch with no previous ASP, HTML nor database experience. However, ideally a basic knowledge of VB.NET is required before tackling this book. This book is all about getting a basic grounding rather than a detailed look `under the hood' at how ASP works. Initially this book is certainly more of a tutorial book than a reference book but I have found that since reading it through cover to cover I am referring back to individual topics and the use of the right hand page for bullet points and figures makes it very usable as a reference.