Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I purchased this book based on the rave reviews it has gotten, but have been grossly let down. Although the author seems to be knowledgeable on the topic of .NET internals, his explanations and book structure are reflective of someone who just wants to show how much he knows, not help you learn. Additionally, good examples are severely lacking.This book is not a good learning book, and at best a mediocre reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so great
Review: I purchased this book because it is from MS Press. But this book really disappointed me. There is no logical flow . There is a lot of text in this book but it is very hard to keep your interest in this book. Sometimes I felt that even English wasn't good. I tried to read this book at different times of the day ,morning ,evening,before dinner, after dinner, on weekends ,during weekdays but nothing changed.I want to 'donate' this book to someone. My personal advice is 'don't buy this book unless you have read a few chapters at the book-shop'. In fact Jeff Prosise's book on .NET has better material on ASP.NEt than this book.
Rating:
Summary: not a good book to learn / reference
Review: I read two books of this author, and I find he try to make simpel thing complex. This book is very dry, even you feel thursty sometimes. No real examples or code, just explanations. And over 1000 pages, the exaplanation is still there. I find most of the thing is from MSDN, and not worth the money. I will throw it away. Never buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Very impressive
Review: I was really impressed w/ this book. It is high quality and very well-written. It covers all of the core issues w/ ASP.NET
Rating:
Summary: Confusing at first
Review: I'd recommend getting this book if you are new to ASP.NET, even though this book is not for the newbie to ASP.NET. This isn't a quick reference book for little problems, this is a concept book, that goes into great detail of how things work in ASP.NET. I received this book right after starting to use ASP.NET, and it was basically useless to me, as most of the content went over my head. After I got much deeper in my knowledge of ASP.NET, this book started to make much more sense. Most every advanced concept behind ASP.NET is covered here in depth, all at your fingertips, I find it amazing that Dino knows all this stuff! They only cons I see is that it is a little dry to read, and you won't find any vb.net examples. Other than that, I recommend getting this book
Rating:
Summary: Confusing at first
Review: I'd recommend getting this book if you are new to ASP.NET, even though this book is not for the newbie to ASP.NET. This isn't a quick reference book for little problems, this is a concept book, that goes into great detail of how things work in ASP.NET. I received this book right after starting to use ASP.NET, and it was basically useless to me, as most of the content went over my head. After I got much deeper in my knowledge of ASP.NET, this book started to make much more sense. Most every advanced concept behind ASP.NET is covered here in depth, all at your fingertips, I find it amazing that Dino knows all this stuff! They only cons I see is that it is a little dry to read, and you won't find any vb.net examples. Other than that, I recommend getting this book
Rating: 
Summary: Finally a good ASP.NET book
Review: I'm still recovering from a really bad asp.net book, and Esposito is restoring my faith in the technical writer. this book is the best if not only asp.net book you'll ever need to read. the style is very reference-oriented, which means it dumps voluminous amounts of knowledge in your lap (1,000+ pages), all well organized, and with enough tutorials and code samples so it's not like reading a dictionary. i did some research before buying this book, and i've been delighted with it. no fluff, no meanderings, just hard-core learning. when you're finished, you can use it like a reference, which is how *all* programming books should be, except maybe the beginner-level books. warning: this book is not for programming beginners. you should have some prior asp experience as well as some object oriented experience in something like Java, c#, c++, etc., or you'll be completely lost, because the material is meat, very little milk.
Rating:
Summary: Dino knows (his stuff)
Review: If you code ASP.Net, you will need this book after you go through the step-by-step books. Dino is very knowledgable regarding ASP.Net and should be considered as one of the best writers on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Dino does it again
Review: Once again, I have to admit that I have a strong bias here... I read Dino's articles in MSDN religously, and love his stuff. I bought his book based on his name alone and as I expected, it's great. The style of this book is exactly the same as his stuff in MSDN. If you aren't familiar with it, I mean that advanced users will love it b/c it's always interesting and practical, but if you are a newbie, it's clear and understandable so it'll be great for you too. If you aren't an ASP.NET developer, then there's a lot to learn. ASP.NET represents a fundamental shift in thinking (what in .NET doesn't?) but if anything, it's much simpler and intuitive than ASP ever could be. I've played with all of the code in this book and everything compiled and worked as expected. The examples are all things that you'll probably confront in your day to day development and Dino gets right to the heart of the issue. He's unquestionably one of the greatest minds in .NET and he is a superb communicator. One of the best features of this book is that it never gets boring and it never skips important details that leave you wondering how to do what he's talking about. I know this sounds petty, but coming up with real examples that aren't silly or overly complex (and always relevant) takes a lot of skill. If you don't read his articles in MSDN - then start, you'll be glad you did. If you don't own this book and want to learn ASP.NET, But it - you'll be glad you did.
Rating: 
Summary: Misleading Title
Review: This book bills itself as THE book for ASP.NET. It will be a mistake if one buys this book in order to learn ASP.NET. This book is a good book only for the slim minority of the people for whom it is marketed. It is more appropriate for this book to qualify its title by something like "... for advanced Web Programmers", "Mastering..." but then it wouldn't sell as much.
The table of contents presents a clear, logical organization but the text within those chapters does not. So here we have another item of (...). It's as if the publisher wrote the TOC and the expert Mr. Esposito just dictated a stream-of-consciousness text into his dictation machine... with a strange version of the English language.
I suspect intermediate to advanced level ASP.NET developers would benefit from the book. At that level, lack of teaching ability may be more tolerable and Dino Esposito's fame as the expert in the subject may become the book's redeeming value. I gave it the third star on that expectation only.
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