Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 24 Hours Complete Starter Kit (Sams Teach Yourself...in 24 Hours)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I give this book by Scott Mitchell FIVE STARS! After tediously working my way through more than half a dozen other ASP.NET books in order to learn this new technology, this is the first one that made sense using examples that were not only easy to understand, but useful for future applications as well. I ran into configuration problems half way through the book, and Scott (the author) was quick to email me with solutions the same day! Just how much more can a student expect? Scott has a way of explaining complicated concepts in a way that someone studying this topic for the first time can understand, and he uses just enough repetition to reinforce a topic thoroughly. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn the basics of ASP.NET.

This book is for beginners. It assumes very little and therefore does not get beyond the basics. The book is slow paced and the author repeats himself often and sometimes in the the same paragraph. Don't get the wrong impression, I think this book is fine, but it's for the novice who doesn't know how to code at all. The software that comes with the book includes a great editor, ASP.Net Web Matrix. The other software is SQL Web Server and Framework. All are avaialble free from Microsoft. I should add all the examples are written in Visual Basic.

If you are new to ASP.NET like I was, this is an excellent book to get you started. I finished this book within a week, and with the knowlege I learned, I'm now moving forward with C#.NET and VisualStudio.Net to development more professional level ASP.NET web pages.

The author describes the basics of ASP.NET concepts and coding techniques using a very clear and understandable writing style. Each hour lesson builds on the previous lesson so even complete novices (like I was) will be comfortable with each topic as they progress through the book.

The author uses VB.NET for the code examples, but C#.NET programmers should have no trouble following along. Indeed, I easily translated the VB code to C# after I finished each lesson.

As an extra bonus, the accompanying CD-Rom contains the full .Net Frameworks SDK, MSDE (SQL Server desktop), and Web Matrix Project, which is a very nifty IDE for developing ASP.NET applications (and the samples included in each lesson). You will need either Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional to test and run your ASP web page locally on your home computer. (For users of Windows 98/ME, the author provides alternative intructions for setting up through a Web Server provider.)

After 10 years of SQL Server/Visual Basic professional programming experience, this book kick-started my efforts to becoming a professional ASP.NET developer. I've been through countless technical books throughout my IT career, and I rate this book as one of the best ever for getting a beginner up and running very quickly with a new technology. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a great book to get started with ASP.NET and the Web Matrix Project IDE.

Mar 11, 2004 T*

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 5 STARS

I found this book to be the clearest and easiest to understand that I have read on ASP.NET, it is laid out in a logical order and all the examples work.
It made the transistion from HTML site construction to ASP.NET simple and very easy to understand and translated to the sites I have to build. The chapters on using a database with ASP.Net were particularly useful, in fact I would go so far as to say essential reading.
I had one area of difficulty (my error) I e-mailed Scott and he replied immediately, that's what I call service. I'm now going to order ASP.NET Data Web Controls Kick Start by Scott.

My background is Classic ASP. I know it extremely well, having learned much in the early days from the author's website and his ASP Book: ASP in 24 Hours. I consider that book to be a 5+ star book.

I am new to ASP.NET. Unfortunately, ASP and ASP.NET have very little in common besides using VB as a base language. In this book Scott describes the basics of ASP.NET quite well.

The big problem I have with this book is that it should be renamed to: ASP.NET using Web Matrix in 24 hours. The Web Matrix project has been abandoned by Microsoft. Not only that, but the current release of Web Matrix is different than the version Scott uses in his book. This causes some confusion and requires some searching for toolbars and functions. The most current version of Web Matrix is beta at best, and it contains significant bugs.

After reading the book you will know how to drag and drop ASP.NET components. You will not know how to code ASP.NET.

Like another reviewer said, the "that topic is beyond the scope of this book" statement was used far too often.

In closing, I believe Scott Mitchell is a talented author. However, this book is disappointing because it teaches you how to drag and drop using an outdated development tool.

I have long been a fan of SAMS "Teach Yourself..." books and own many of them on topics ranging from SQL to Flash. Most of them have been excellent resources for the information I wanted. Unfortunately, this has got to be one of the worst books I have had the misfortune to purchase.

The entire book is either one big $30 advertisement for Mitchell's web site or a lengthy gush about Microsoft's Web Matrix and the Data Grid control. There was very little in the way of logic or syntax except where it related to the Data Grid. Everything else, I'm told, can be done for me by Web Matrix. I could have found that out from the Web Matrix documentation.

When I purchase a book to show me how to use ASP.NET or any other software, etc. I expect the book to do just that. If I had wanted a book on the Data Grid or Web Matrix, I would have bought one specializing on just that. (On that note, I looked at the Mitchell KickStart book from Sams and was amazed at how little it, too, covered true database interaction except, of course, where it related to the DataGrid. It is one book I certainly will not be purchasing)

If you need a book on Microsoft's Web Matrix or on how to use the DataGrid, by all means, buy this book. If you want a book that teaches you the essentials of actual ASP .NET programming and development, look to SAMS ASP .NET Kickstart or Teach Yourself ASP .NET in 21 Days.

I was recently given a new project that must be web based. Although I have a good background with VB6, ASP.NET and VB.NET was very new to me. Needless to say after going over the book, my project's progress has been very good. The examples that he showed here on how to use Datagrids,Data Repeater, Drop Downs, and other controls I was able to easily integrate on my project. This book is a very handy reference and does not bore you because you get results when you run the example codes.

Although the samples being shown were built using WEBMATRIX, I was easily able to use the same codes using VISUAL STUDIO. So if you are learning ASP.NET with or without time constraint, make this your first book!!!!

I would not recommend this book to anyone, as it ignores the fact that there are other tools on the market, and keep telling people that you have to input HTML codes manually. There are also so many mistakes in the book that make the reading difficult. Even if I have been following his instructions on the exercices closely, some times the resulting web pages won't run at all.

As you can see from my rating, I'm not offset by this book. I would recommend it, but only to circumstantial needs. This book is written with great style, and an interesting mannerism. I guess that's what you get with an author that happens to be younger than the majority of the projected audience. The information contained is helpful, but seems like the author directs you more towards his free website, rather than show you an example in the book you've just purchased. It's almost a slap in the face if you think about it. I felt like I've paid for something he's giving away to everyone else.

Personally, I've been a web, and application programmer for about ten years. I have learned many languages, but felt a little uneasy about learning ASP.NET. Not only did I not want to have to run an SQL server, I didn't want to deal with the aspects of online checkout. I recently accepted a job where it was a prerequisite to have ASP.NET background, so I bought this 24-Hour guide to jumpstart myself into the world of Active Server Pages.

This book really did show me that there was nothing to worry about. Although reading this book is almost like a rollercoaster ride. He jumps around so much, you don't know wether you're going up or down. One second he's talking about VBscript, then about aesthetic properties, then he's talking about how everything you need to know is beyond the scope of this book, and you should really buy his other ones. Then goes on to explain how to install the SQL server (In Hour 13. More than halfway through the book, and you can now run the software needed to make your pages work). After I setup my SQL server and started making sucessful, and almost-useful database retreival pages, I realized that the book ended there. It started harping on un-needed aesthetic properties of dropdown menus, and listboxes (I guess that's what you get with such a young author). The DataGrid properties were very helpful, and useful to use when "dolling up" your website, but if you've got an IQ of over 40, you could probably figure out that the same properties apply in the same way to all of the web controls, and the readers might know how to use a Repeater control.

The most important web control in the arsenal of an ASP.NET programmer is the Repeater control. This book has one statement regarding the Repeater control, claiming it to be (and I quote), "Beyond the scope of this book." I think there are more mentions to the phrase, "Beyond the scope of this book," than explanations of imperative web controls.

I would recommend that you check out the free website located at http://4guysfromrolla.com before buying the book. There are more examples at the site than in the book, as well as full programming example codes (which by the way are not explained in the book).

The programmer that plans on using a text-based editor to create ASP.NET pages should not buy this book. Anyone with very little programming comprehension, or any beginner that knows nothing about pre-existing web languages may enjoy this book. For a 14 year-old beginner of HTML, this would be a very fun book, I'm sure.

I recently purchased this book for my job. I have learned a lot from this book so far, but ran into a problem that I could not figure out. I asked around my job space, but no one knew the answer. So, I emailed the person who wrote this book on Friday, and I had a response that Monday when I got in. Scott helped me out with my problem, and now my application is up and running beautifully. Thanks again Scott!! I recommend this book for all!!