Customer Reviews

ASP .NET Kick Start

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I gave three starts to this book as an encouragement to authors to write books that make use of the Visual Studio (VS) Net
environment. There are still relatively few ASP.NET books that do so. Visual Studio is a proprietary environment but so is
ASP.NET. So it doesn't really make much sense to type in the code using Notepad or even Web Matrix because
you would lose the advantage of Intellisense which can probably trap 80% of the mistakes made by newbies.

The book is easy to read and follow. I have several ASP.NET books. This is the only one that I have read cover to cover.
But it may be too wordy for some people or too detailed for others with many "drag this and drop that"
type instructions that may be annoying for those who hate this.

The bulk of the book provides an introduction of how to add SQL server database connectivity to ASP.NET web pages.
There is very little in this book that someone couldn't find somewhere on the web. However, the price is modest.

Much of the material and examples were extracted from the author's larger"Unleashed" book.

Code listings are provided in both VB and C#. There are also a number of examples showing how to retrieve data from SQL using the ASP.NET database controls.
However, there is no CD or web site where you can download or copy the code. Luckily, there are very few typos.

Beware that you will not find much information "on creating ASP.NET Web applications" as is stated in the introduction.
The only item that remotely resembles an application is found on p. 418 and that consists of a simple login web page.
The rest are snippet demo items on how to populate a database control.

In fact, much of the coding in the book creates output that doesn't look much better than the static HTML 101 equivalents.
Check out any recent Dreamweaver or Flash book and you'll see the difference. In fact, don't toss out yet your old ASP and Visual Interdev
books because they may be still be useful until better ASP.NET books appear on the market that deal among other things with the
following topics:

- how to pass information from one web page to another (especially using the request object)
- how to design pages for W3C web accessibility for disabled persons viz section 501 rules (style sheets rather than tables)
- how and where to use client side code. There is no "code behind" for client side (there is virtually no discussion here but it is an important topic e.g. code to create
printer friendly pages). In fact, according to this book there still seem to be quite a few places where one must manually add inline server side code or tags.
- ASP.NET design and code strategies. How does one create ASP.NET pages so that a designer can easily update the graphical elements!
(Part of the problem appears to be in Visual Studio itself.
- how to create ASP.NET pages with rich graphical content with/without VS. VS has an accompanying graphical editor which is not mentioned in the book.
But that is nowhere near as well integrated as Dreamweaver and Fireworks are. However, the standard dull buttons don't cut it any more on a web page!
- multimedia management and deployment

The author's much larger "Unleashed" book which I also have provides more technical details but it still falls well short of providing an integrated web page
development resource using ASP.NET and VS. Size doesn't matter!

I did a lot of research before picking up this .NET book. I must say it has exceeded my expectations by a long shot! It's simply fantastic! I just started ASP.NET programming, and it really helps that there are step-by-step instructions on how to do all the procedures. The author makes no assumptions as to readers' proficiency in using VS.NET.

Also it's great that examples are all given in both C# and VB.NET.

Get this book if you are (1) a VS.NET user and (2) are a beginner to ASP.NET but intend to be proficient in it and (3) use C# or VB.NET.

This is a great book. It is quick and to the point. The examples are focused and short, describing a toolset you can use to build pages.

However, it assumes you understand VB.NET and data websites. Certain steps you are asked to code are not particualary well documented, so it is not for beginners.

It assumes you will be using Visual Studio.NET to build your site. I am new to Visual Studio and this book makes the power of that product very clear, sort of like moving from a hammer to a hammer-gun.

It does not spend any time expaining why .Net is better, or run down the feature set of the .Net framework, or teach code writing. Instead it simply shows you how to use the .NET tools in the real world, the advantage becomes obvious if you have experience with classic ASP pages. I read the Wrox book on Beginning ASP.NET yet after 600 pages I still couldn't do anything meaningful, I was baffled as to why one would really make the effort to learn ASP.NET.

I wish I had started with this book first. Other stuff: The page layout in nice and clean, and the writing is easy to read and understand.

Highly recommended.

This book from Stephen Walther has got everything right, especially for beginners. I wish I had seen this book a little earlier. The first part on Creating Web Forms is written very well. It neither scares the beginner nor does it bore him. Most book authors don't realize that beginners are only looking for a simple book through which they can gain confidence. The language in this book is simple and whereever the author uses sophisticated technical language he explains it. Very good book if you are looking to learn ASP.NET using Visual Studio.NET (doesn't matter if its C# or VB.NET route, code is written in both.). One other good thing is that the author takes you step by step because we all know that one cannot learn programming by reading but only by programming.

I found this to be the best book to get up and running with Visual Studio .NET in the shortest amount of time. This book is written in a clear and concise manor. However, some of the code(VB.Net) didn't work on my computer. The publisher does not provide a CD or make the source code available for download. Nor do they publish an errata. Therefore upon rating I took off 1 star for no source code and 1 star for no errata. Maybe by the time you're reading this they will make it available. If so I highly recommend this book.

Most of the books on .Net development stay away from Visual Studio.Net as if it were the plague, a creation of an "evil empire", or because of some variation on the "real programmers use Notepad" idea. Developers of that mentality please don't read this book because I want you to stay in that non-competitive hole you have dug for yourself.

I have been working with ASP.Net and Visual Studio.Net since beta 1 and quickly realized the need for and the advantages of using this IDE. The learning curve to use Visual Studio.Net effectively has been a long, fairly steep climb mostly because of the lack of any talented technical author(s) willing to take on the challenge of clearly documenting this comprehensive (and need I say complex?) design environment. Steve, thank you for taking it on and doing such a great job.

You really won't believe how much easier and faster database driven Web applications can be developed once you learn VS.Net. The control over the presentation (learn to use "auto format" and "style builder" for DataGrid "whatifs" and you'll be hooked), let alone the Server Explorer in either of the two Enterprise editions (which among other things can give give you the functionality of SQL Server's Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer rolled into one) just nails it! You never have to leave VS.Net and that is something you have to experience to truly appreciate.

Steve gets all this out to you and more in an easy to read manner. His bio in his books say he was a Ph.d candidate in Linguistics and Philosophy at M.I.T. before he got hooked on the Web. The quality and clarity of his writing certainly reflects and is a tribute to this high level of education. I'll bet his mom's happy about it too.

There is one bug in VS.Net that Steve didn't cover in this book that everyone should know about and MICROSOFT SHOULD FIX!!! They have at least acknowledged it in Knowledge Base Article 313899 (search for it using kbbug KB313899). What happens is that sometimes after you run debug on your project the properties window no longer responds and you have to restart VS.Net to get it back. You can still save your work but it is annoying.

Anyway, Stephen Walther's book "ASP.Net Kick Start" will do just that, kick your development into a higher gear. Did I say the man can write? Also buy his other book "ASP.Net Unleashed" if you want the best one-two ASP.Net punch available. Hey Steve, when are you going to offer "Unleashed" in a C# version? "Kick Start" gives all its examples in both C# and VB.Net so I know you can do it. Let me know when you do and I'll trade you my VB.Net version!

Why can't all computer books be written like this one? It's so cleanly written that you'll probably be able to follow it without any problems at all. You'll find no "Dummies"-style attempts at humor here, or other digressions taking up space. He tells you exactly what you want to know, provides a simple example you can play along with, then moves on to the logical next step.

This book does make for some pretty dry reading if you're not sitting in front of your computer running Visual Studio .Net. Here's how just about every page reads:

"You can do <such-and-such thing> with your web form, by merely <clicking here and there>. For example, say you have a site that needs to <such-and-such>. You would do <this>, then <that>. Let's try an example. Do <this> then do <that>, then run your page. It will look like <this figure>.

Then he moves on. It's a clean, simple, constructive way to teach.

This book does not take you through a single mockup of an application all the way through (at least not yet, I'm not done with it yet). Rather, each section works on a separate, unrelated pretend application. I thought I would find this difficult, but I actually prefer it, because it keeps the examples so clean.

Before tackling this book, I recommend reading a little .Net background elsewhere, and perhaps a C# primer if you feel you need one. All code examples are in VB.Net as well as C#.

I'm going to quit writing now so I can get back to it. It's that good.

This book does exactly what it says - gives a fast paced intro to asp.net. It's very readable and offers code samples in both c# and vb.net.
I'm almost done with it and have just two issues:
1. Weak summary. The summaries are basically a short paragraph restating the purpose of the chapter. There are no review questions or any other way to gauge your understanding level.
2. Reliance on "drag and drop". Data objects are almost exclusively accessed by dragging them onto the designer surface and letting vs.net write the code. It wouldn't have taken much longer to type out the ado.net code manually (something I started doing on my own about half way through) and the repetition would have been very beneficial, not to mention the fact that this method isn't very practical in the real applications.
Coming down off of the soapbox, this is a very useful book that lets you dive right in and gain confidence quickly.

ASP.NET Kick Start is just what I was looking for to help me
learn how to use Visual Studio. I learn best with the
step-by-step approach (click on this, now type that, etc.)
Also, I love that Stephen Walther gives code examples in BOTH
C# and VB.

I feel much more confident about using Visual Studio now and
am excited to start using it to replace the old stuff that I
developed using VBScript. If I am ever given another software package to use (which is highly likely where I work, believe me), I will definitely considering buying another Sams book.

Good book, easy to read, maybe too easy!!! Repetitive explanations on how to connect to with slqDataConnection...
But for beginner, it's a good introduction to the world of ASP.NET. You will have to read a couples of other books to really understand the amplitude of this new technology.