Customer Reviews

Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: Includes Silverlight 2 (Expert's Voice in .NET)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This third edition is yet another outstanding textbook in the first author's collection and his writing skills seem to improve with every book. As the contents can be seen at a glance, it remains to say that each topic is, in fact, dealt with in a most comprehensive manner. In order to remove any ambiguity that might remain from any descriptive passage, there are rich examples that accompany each chapter. In fact, it was the superb set of examples for every chapter that were included with Matthew MacDonald's Pro WPF in C# 2008, second edition, that prompted me to buy this book, for which I have no regrets However, it is perhaps advisable to work through Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008, second edition, especially for the database work, before moving on to this book.

If Matthew MacDonald keeps up this standard of writing and presentation, not only for as ASP.NET, but also for WPF and Silverlight, it is going to be very difficult for any other author to do better. Despite the fact that other viewpoints are, and should be, always welcome, I find myself returning to MacDonald's books for helping me reach a more solid understanding.

I would like to conclude with a message to the publishers: the layout and print for the Beginning... book is excellent, if the heavy content is borne in mind. Unfortunately, there seems to have been some downsizing on the font size in the Pro... book that seems to make it disproportionally harder (for me, at least) to read. Perhaps, when better economic times come, the publishers would consider going to two volumes for Pro... books for what, each time, is a huge amount of reading material.

This book is intended as a primer for professional developers who have a reasonable knowledge of server-side web development. This book doesn't provide an exhaustive look at every ingredient in the .NET Framework in fact, such a book would require twice as many pages. Instead, this book aims to provide an intelligent introduction to ASP.NET for professional programmers who don't want to rehash the basics.Along the way youll focus on other corners of the .NET Framework that youll need in order to build professional web applications, including data access and xml. Using these features youll be able to create future generation web sites. To get the most from this book you should be familiar with the syntax of the c# language and with object oriented concepts. You don't need to have experience with a previous version of asp.net. all the fundamentals are covered in this book. If you're an experienced java or c++ developer with no .NET experience, you should consider supplementing this book with an introduction to .NET.

I can say I actually read most of this book and in every chapter there was something that was useful and the way it laid it out was perfect. I have used several books from Apress but this one was really full of information and it covers so much on ASP that I want to keep it handy. Advanced ASP programmers will find this book handy as it covers the latest in 3.5 and also Silverlight 2.
The topics covered in this book are great for beginners but it also covers some great topics for the more advanced user. If you are looking into learning more about ASP, this is the book to get. Don't be intimidated by the 1300+ pages because every page will sure talk about something that you could use in an ASP application.

Like many of those who have already posted a review of this book, I have read many programming books over many years, and this one really stands out.

This book is amazingly well organized and well written. It is not as long as it is because it is filled with straight reference material that you could just as well look up online. It's long because it covers an huge amount of conceptual ground. And what's amazing is that none of it feels rambling, repetitive, or disorganized. It is meticulously cross-referenced and each section gives you a clear map of what you're going to cover and how it all breaks down. The approach for each topic is to start with a brief motivating introduction, then zoom out to a comprehensive bird's eye view and list the options available for approaching the problem, and then to dive into each option in detail, comparing and contrasting the trade-offs. The author is willing to give you the details on something but also willing to say, "actually, this method isn't really used much for such and such reasons", which is very helpful.

This book is a superset of many lesser books on individual topics that are dealt with pretty much comprehensively in one or more chapters in this book (and in most cases any details remaining on a given topic are easy to look up online once you have the foundation presented here). For most of the topics, the only background needed is some basic experience in C#.

If you want to know everything about Microsoft's world of web programming, get this book, read it, and when you return to your personal list of what you have left to learn you'll likely find it's much shorter.

Finally, I want to repeat that the actual writing in the book is very high quality which helps make the book a pleasure to read. The tone is professional, yet inviting. You don't feel like you're indulging a programmer as he tries to write entertaining prose (if I read one more sentence in a programming book that follows the pattern, "To help you manage your widgets, the system includes a component called, appropriately enough, the Widget Manager!" I think I'm going to, appropriately enough, barf). You feel like you're reading a book by a skilled writer who happens to know a ton about programming.

If you're an ASP.NET programmer at any level, looking for that "one book" you would want with you, if stranded on a desert island, this might be it. I'm a C#/SQL programmer, moving to website development, who has found this book useful both as a review or introduction to topics, and as a reference to use while actually programming. Even at full retail, this volume's 1,478 pages are a good value, in that it is exhaustive in what it covers on ASP.NET programming.

The book is well-organized, starting with overview "Core Concepts" chapters, then offering multi-chapter segments on "Data Access", "Building ASP.NET Websites", "Security", "Advanced User Interface" and "Client-Side Programming". Segments are divided into chapters starting with basics, then moving into specialized topics. For example, the Data Access segment starts with chapters on ADO.NET fundamentals, data sets and data binding that are must reads, but you can then pick and choose among chapters on caching, files, LINQ or XML. I am reading basic chapters across segments to get an overall feel for the ASP.NET world, then I go back for the details needed to work on my particular website projects.

The attraction of ASP.NET is that it takes the Windows Forms programming concept so many corporate developers already know, and applies it to website programming with Web Forms. The key concepts that make this possible are Automatic Postback and View States, which the authors introduce very early, thoroughly and clearly - it's a smart approach to lay in this critical foundation before branching into the actual development segments.

Be aware that the word "Pro" in the book's title is meaningful. As the authors warn, there is an assumption in the writing and the sample code that you have some C# and .NET skills. If you don't, back up and find a book that can get you ready for this one; or if you're a VB.NET programmer, there is a corresponding Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008 title for you to consider.

The book's title says "Includes Silverlight 2", and there is a chapter that summarizes the basics of Silverlight and how it can interact with ASP.NET. I hope that the next edition of Pro ASP.NET (presumably for .NET 4.0, C# 2010 and Silverlight 3) expands on interaction between ASP.NET and Silverlight, as well as other emerging Microsoft technologies, such as ASP.NET MVC, ADO.NET Entity Framework and RIA Data Services. ASP.NET remains the main player among Microsoft web technologies, but how and why we use it with the newer stuff is not well-addressed in any books or even in many blogs that I can find. Meanwhile, this Third Edition of Pro ASP.NET is truly a one-stop resource for the world of ASP.NET today. I'm very pleased to have it by my side.

The writer could not be lazier because all the examples in the book are way too easy compared to what we need to build in the real world.
It's just a list of references that you can find it online for free. Explanation are confusing and if you need more examples, you should go to Google instead of this book.
Bad choice as a text book.

I am not a newbie in web programming. That's why, although I had not work with ASP.NET before, I jumped right into the Pro version of this book. I was looking for a very comprehensive not outdated book on ASP.NET and I ended here based on the reviews and the amount of content. Ok, that's the intro, now the meat....

The book is excellent for a pro trying to get deep into ASP.NET. It might take me a couple of years until I realize of topics that were not included here. The division made (Core Concepts, Data Access, Building Websites, Security, Advanced User Interface, and Client-Side Programming) is perfect for me. It started with a list of important controls to take care of, followed by a deep work on Data Access. I have to say though, that the Building Websites part of the book (4 chapters) is kind of weak compared to the others (which are strong, so they set the bar high). The Security part is comprehensive, and I like the Advanced User Interface and the Client-Side part.
The way is written is good for me, no joking, right to the point, like talking to a pro. The examples are great, although sometimes they lack some explanation (nothing bad). They include figures that help a lot when explaining some technologies, platforms, or structure.

Now, parts I have not read: parts of Data Access, parts of Security, and Advanced User Interface. This a bible, I have had it for about 6 months, and have read about half of it. It might take me about another 6 months to reach almost all of it.

Complains: I read in Amazon that some parts of the book were missing (replaced by a copy of other chapters). I thought that it could be an error of previous versions. NO! my book had that too. About 80 pages of the Data Access part are missing. This book is about 1500 pages, but still 80 pages are a lot, of an important matter. APRESS should give me a gift back, or give a complete book, actually. I am seriously thinking about writing them and ask for my replacement.

Changes to be made:
* Please improve the Client-side programming, include more chapters. Also, include more chapters on the Building Websites part. I would probably cut a few chapters from Advanced User Interface and also just one chapter from Security part to avoid having a 2000 pages book.
* Also, please move client-side programming just after Building Websites, and leave Security part to be last. That does not hurt anyone.

Even with the complains, I give it a five for including so many topics, and being written so well.

I thought this was a great reference on ASP.NET. As a tutorial if you are completely new to ASP.NET I much preferred the Sitepoint book but this is very good as a reference or second book. The free digital version of the book is a nice touch, particularly as it is searchable.

I'm on chapter 8 and could not wait any longer to write a review. This book is awesome in every way. I've been programming for almost 10 years, with about two years of C# experience. I have read many programming books that only give you half the story. This one, on the other hand, does not leave you guessing and does not hold anything back. It's clearly written so that even a beginner can benefit from it, but provides enough of a detailed description of ASP.NET 3.5 that it can benefit an advanced programmer. This is not a .NET Framework reference, but a real-world Web development reference. I'm reading this book like a novel because it's that good, I just can't put it down. Much of the information is not new to me, but I still find many things that I didn't know about or simply forgot. I'm definitely using my highlighter and taking notes. I especially love the important Tips you find throughout, making sure that no question is left unanswered. The only downside is that there is no PDF version on CD. Perfect!

I've had this book for about 3 weeks and it's by far the best ASP.NET book I've read so far. It contains a lot of those undocumented tidbits about ASP.NET that are not covered in any other book. I would recommend this to any developer that wants to gain some serious knowledge about ASP.NET 3.5.