ASP Programming for the Absolute Beginner [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ John W. Gosney (Author) "In this chapter, you will Learn what ASP is and how it interacts with both Web servers and Web browser software..." (more)
Key Phrases: file being examined, fifth visitor, object form collection, Century Gothic, Database Results Wizard, Comic Sans (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Active Server Pages (ASP) is the standard way of doing server-side scripting under Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). ASP offers tight interaction with Microsoft database servers, and isn't as hard to learn as you might think. With a good book at your side--ASP Programming for the Absolute Beginner is one--you can expect to be doing simple ASP work within an hour, and elaborate projects within a few days of experimentation. Progress along the learning curve requires only an open mind and a bit of diligence, as well as some careful guidance from someone who knows both ASP and the requirements of its typical users.

As the title of this book implies, it's meant for someone who's just getting going with ASP, and who in fact has chosen ASP as their first programming language. For that reason, John Gosney doesn't just show how conditional statements are implemented in ASP; he also explains why you'd want a conditional statement in the first place. Readers also learn about related subjects, such as HTML form syntax. Not all the information is elementary: there are full tutorials on connecting to Active Data Objects (ADO) databases and formulating SQL queries. The approach seems to work nicely, on the logic that assuming too little is better than assuming too much. Most programmers will be able to learn all they need to know for most ASP projects from this book. --David Wall

Topics covered: All about Active Server Pages (ASP), from square one (installing IIS 5) to the intermediate level (connecting to databases, executing queries, and presenting nicely formatted results). With several example games, the author illustrates ASP syntax, control structures, interaction with HTML forms, and connectivity to back-end databases.

Product Description

ASP Programming for the Absolute Beginner is designed to help readers with no programming experience learn not only the basics of ASP, but also the fundamental programming concepts they need to grasp in order to learn their next programming language. Offering an easy, non-intimidating approach to ASP, the For the Absolute Beginner series was designed by computer science instructors and takes a unique approach to programming. Throughout the book, you will be using programming concepts to create simple games with ASP. Before you know it, you will have accumulated a wealth of programming skills that you can easily put to use in real-world scenarios, including programming ASP Web pages with VBScript, using ASP to work with databases and forms, and working with ASP objects and components.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (July 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931841012
• ISBN-13: 978-1931841016
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #838,903 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Course PTR Absolute Beginners Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Learn ASP --- THE HARD WAY, May 19, 2002

By	"rmaloy" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Learn ASP -- the hard way: by acting as editor for premier press.

I bought this book because I am tired of the dummies/idiots/morons series' condescension, and found some solace in this book. However, the code is contradictory. The same line of code could be reprinted on three different pages and have three minor differences. Even the source included on the cd-rom is different than the book. To the "absolute beginner" these differences seem insignificant until you try to run the code and get only errors. I am learning ASP, but because I have to debug somebody else's code.

There are two great lessons from this book: 1) minor differences in code are crucial, 2) find a book that knows that.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent if you have no programming background whatsoever!, December 28, 2001

By	Dennis Hellawell (Clinton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

I'm taking a course and we were given the book SAMS "Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP". Though I think that will be an excellent reference, I felt it made assumptions that I had some basic programming knowledge beforehand. I was struggling and kind'a lost. I went thorough every book on ASP on the bookstore shelf and I selected this one to help me out. I was looking for "Active Server Page Programming for Dummies, Second Edition". That book was out of stock and I selected Mr. Gosney's book. It's very clear with good exercises. It explains installing both IIS and Personal Web Server. It relates ASP with other apps like Front Page 2000. So far it the best, introductory book that I've found. One can pretty much learn without any additional instructional help.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction and need some improvement..., January 25, 2004

By	Roath Kanel "Kanel" (Phnom Penh, Cambodia) - See all my reviews

I found this books is very helpful of the programmer who want to learn ASP from the beginner. However you need to know some concept from visual basic, html and some operation task in windows environment. The author explain very clearly and easy to understand. Anyway I found three point that should be change based on my experinece along with this books: 1) If you are install PWS from the windows 98se CD-ROM, it won't work. You need to find this solution from the following hyperlink to the install it successfully: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];Q246081 the books didn't cover this problem. For windows 2000 it is fine. 2) The code published in the books is too small it made me very difficult to read. 3) The most of the example of the source code is based on the game. The sample code should be focus on the read example that the technology apply for such as the real task that we might face when we get a project on web development. Base on that 3 disadvantage is the reson that I give only 4 start. If there is a future release of this book, I hope this 3 point would be change.