Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book starts out excellent. I was a beginner at ASP programming so everything was well written and logical. Using this book I have been able to complete my first e-commerce store. There are a lot of great examples and they are also explained well. One part that is lacking is the logging in before you can add to the cart. This is done to avoid session variables, but I think it would turn away a LOT of customers. The author needs to point this out. I programmed my site to allow people to add without logging in and log in only when they are ready to buy. It was extra work, because none of the examples include this.

Later on in the book, different sections are written by different authors and you can tell. The writing style shifts dramatically and it is no longer as clearly written as the first part. The examples don't follow a consistent look any longer. Also, some of the example code isn't even on the CD and the code isn't even in the book (p. 280). The book says the code is too long to include in the book so it just references a few sections and then tells you the rest is on the CD. Nothing. The put the code on the SAMS site, but it took them awhile. I paid a lot of money for this book and it would be nice if they had just ONE person to proof read the examples and the writing before it was printed.

Overall this was a great book. Other than a few chapters in the middle, it was very well written and thought out. I would highly recommend it to beginners like I was or to anyone working on an e-commerce site.

I had read the SAMS ASP in 24 hours book which was an excellent start to ASP. This book would have been just as good to start with and it is a lot more in-depth. Of course, the focus is e-commerce and you are taken through building an online store. The examples are easy to follow and the text is well presented and easy to understand (especially for people who hate technical books).

If you are looking for an introduction to ASP and have not yet purchased the SAMS 24 hour book, consider this one instead. They do cover a lot of the things that the other book has in it. Towards the back end, they have examples of email forwarding from forms and other bits and pieces that are not directly related to e-commerce, but were the reasons I got the other book.

If you are trying to build a full-blown store online, start here. It won't get any easier than this!

Knowing only a limited amount of VB script as a starting point to ASP this book gave a step by step approach to designing and working an online store. The ease of the indiviual tasks and explaination made 'Learning' this new language fun together with being prodctive. Fully recomended for anyone wanting to create an online store or learn the basics of ASP Programing.

As an experienced ASP Web Developer and Internet consultant for over four years, I am often asked by beginners: "What do I need to learn to get into VB, ASP, SQL, Server-IIS, JavaScript, VB Script, COM, etc....". I usually give the answer to start with a Teach yourself book. These are self paced and call guide you through some of the most simple problems or applications.

Sams created a very good book for those Internet startups companies and individuals. You will most definitely find most of your answers like personalization. A key factor in the E-Commerce industry now. On page 280 there was the checkpassword.asp file missing, but Sams has corrected that in a download.

Also, I have to admit that the coding used is well-formed, neat & clean, and extensive. I'm sure that the example would bring new content to some seasoned eCommerce expert as well.

For newbies you might consider another book such as Beginning ASP 3.0, Beginning ASP Databases. Even though this book is pretty easy to follow, it also assume you have some asp programming knowledge.

Overall Great Job and the examples do work!

I found this book extremely useful for beginning e-commerce. If you have no idea where to start when tackling an e-commerce project, I highly recommend this book. The ideas it provides along with the methods are essential for any project. The book covers essentials such as working with files, creating the shopping cart, working with credit cards, security, using wallets, and even how to set up an SSL connection. The information in this book is without a doubt vital for beginners. I have to say that this is not the best ASP e-commerce programming book in the world, but it will teach you the basics in a clear and quick manner. The examples are real world examples and can be implemented in a basic e-commerce site. (Don't expect to re-create amazon.com through this book.) The reason I give 4 stars to this book is that not all the files for the examples are on the CD. Also, the URL that is listed to see the site online does not exist. Other than that, it's a very useful book.

My experience in internet-programming was a bit of HTML and a bit of JavaScript. This book taught me everything I needed to know about creating dynamic web-pages, and how to link my web-pages to relational databases. If you have a bit of programming background and want to build your own web-database, this is the book to buy!

If you are new to programming, I suggest you avoid this book at all costs. I would have though that after 4.5 years programming 21 days to learn anything is enough time but not in this case. There are a number of examples that have "typos" in them and unless you can program, spotting them is not easy. Nice and easy style of writing in the beginning seriously alters later in the book clearly stating the work of another author. It becomes very technical and extremely "beginner unfriendly".
Having said all that, I would recommend this book as ONE of the reference books you use while programming in ASP. I hope this helps.

Good book...great instructor. I bought this book a while back and since I've gotten so much from it, I figure I'll give it a plug.
If you've programmed in VB and have some ASP experience, then this is great book. A lot of the programming I've done has been within the context of a programming team. So, most of the time, I would work on a specific, limited portion of a program. For me, this book was great in that it guides me through the ENTIRE process of building a website by myself. Through working on the project in the book, I gained a good understanding of how to set up navigation for a website and also little tricks on state maintenance. (Coming fr. mainly a VB and SQL Server background, those were my weak points.) There are other little points that are too numerous to mention here. The style of the writing is clean and easily understandable. The author also gives alternative solutions to a single problem. An example, is the shopping cart. You are shown the implementation of a session cart and a database driven cart, and the pros and cons of each solution is discussed.

Anyway, to cut this short, I've built a number of websites all based on the code in here but fleshed out with SQL Server (instead of Access) and broke the implementation up into n-tier by implementing classes and objects. But that really is easy once I got the understanding and foundation of E-Commerce websites fr Stephen Walther's book.

I'm just wondering when Stephen is coming out with E-Commerce Programming with ASP.NET ... I'm sure it would be a blockbuster.
(hint hint)

This book has one major flaw. The author discusses the advantages/disadvantages of using session variables when creating the cart and the advantages/disadvantages of requiring the user to create an account before anything can be added to their shopping cart. That is great, but then the author proceeds to use the database (require the user to create an account) method throughout the rest of the book. Tell me how many carts require you to create an account to put something in their basket? I think this deters most shoppers. After I realized that the rest of the book uses this method, I put it on the shelf. And thus the reason for the poor rating. I have now purchased VB Developers Guide to E-Commerce published by Sybex. I hope this one is better.

I teach ASP in the California State University system and my students are generally happy with this book. It provides enough source code you could make a shopping cart and catalog and understand what you are doing and why you were choosing to do it with Session variables or not. There is definitely some annoying errata, and the source code doesn't match entirely with the source on the CD. I was disappointed in it's coverage of password protection. So, this is far from a perfect 5.

Someone could get up to speed with ASP pretty quickly with this book. I use it to teach ASP to a cross-section of students with moderate computer backgrounds--not computer science majors. It does not cover the basic functionality, like loops and variables, so a better book for beginners may be one such as Learn ASP in 21 Days. That is if you are still teaching or learning ASP rather than dot-Net. And I honestly don't know which is best to learn at this transitional point. I find ASP very simple to learn and teach from books like this that just tell you what to do, show you, and let you do it.