45 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very disapointing, July 16, 2011
This review is from: Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework (Paperback)
I feel that this book has been rushed out to be the first MVC 3 book on the shelf. It is full of errors and not just typo's. These include errors in the code it's self! I have spent several hours wasted trying to work out why my code doesn't work only to find out that the book it's self is wrong!
The graphics included in the book don't always represent the results of the texts (for example screenshots containing tests that you aren't told about and even the down-loadable source code doesn't include!).
The use of some code is even incorrect in some cases! These are only small things that I have seen so far (half way through the book) for example parameter orders incorrect in the tests that do pop up errors when they should but the errors will be slightly wrong causing more wasted time trying to work out what is wrong!
The only reason I am still plodding though on trying to learn from this book is because I have already purchased it, there are no alternatives and deadlines are looming.
I purchased the ALPHA of this book from Apress directly when it was available and have been sending errors via there site for months but NONE of the errors I submitted have been corrected in the final release and have heard nothing from Apress.
If you are trying to learn MVC I suggest finding another MVC 2 book that you know is good and then when you have a grasp of MVC 2 topping up your knowledge on the changes (Razor etc...) in MVC 3 from other sources (or maybe any other books that will be published shortly).
Having said all that if you don't mind all the rushed error prone work and just want to get into MVC 3 right now (as at the time of writing this is the ONLY MVC 3 book out there) getting this book and spending the time to read and follow it (which isn't easy) you will get there or at least to a place that you can ask the right questions to find the answers and understand other examples on the net.
EDIT:
I have had more problems where the book was not explaining what the code was trying to achieve and as the code was wrong several hours were lost trying to establish if it was me that was wrong or the book... A few examples of solution are:
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect book for the beginner and the advanced MVC developer, July 12, 2011
This review is from: Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework (Paperback)
This is the perfect book for the beginner and the advanced MVC developer. It is a one stop shop for learning the ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework.
It starts out with a nice little sample application that will get beginners up to speed fast. It then covers the MVC Pattern in detail and how it relates to Domain-Driven Development, Repositories, Dependency Injection, and Automated Testing.
Next the is a chapter on the C# features a good MVC developer needs in their tool belt, as well as the Razor syntax. This chapter does a good job of introducing the Razor view engine.
Then there is a chapter on the essential tools MVC developers should understand. This chapter covers Ninject, Unit Testing and Moq.
In the next 3 chapters the authors take you through building a real application. Everything is included from the views to the repository (using Entity Framework 4.1), to the database. They also include the unit tests. The application is a complete store front and an administration site.
The next part of the book includes details on individual features of the ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework. It includes chapters on URLs, Routing & Areas, Controllers & Actions, Filters, Controller Extensibility, Views, Model Templates, Model Binding, Model Validation, Unobtrusive Ajax, and jQuery.
The last part of the book has chapters on Security, Authentication & Authorization, Deployment.
I like that the authors show you how to take advantage of the tools available in Visual Studio 2010 to help get you as productive as possible.
This is a very well rounded book. It covers everything a .NET Architect and Developer needs to know to build real world applications.
The downloadable code is very well organized and appears usable. It is seperated into chapters and then into topics with in the chapters. It looks really nice, but most of it does not run so that is a ding to the book.
All in all I highly recommend this book for anyone moving into the ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework world.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book but poor printing, July 20, 2011
This review is from: Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework (Paperback)
The book is the only one available for MVC 3 as today and it is an excellent book. Each chapter builds over the knowledge gained on the previos one, it shows full but easy to learn examples taking each topic this way as a hands-on tutorial. You can buy it without any doubts, you will learn ASP.NET MVC 3.0 for good. Only problem is the bad quality on images, it looks like this was printed (images not text which is good) with a low toner or draft photocopy (Reason why I am giving a 4 and not a 5). This should not stop you of getting this awesome book, but Amazon should send us a new book if re-printed properly.
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