Rating: 
Summary: Great beginner book if you want to learn ASP.NET fast!
Review: 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!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to ASP.NET and Web Matrix Project
Review: 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
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Developer Review
Review: This an honest review: A: the book does an excellent job to teach WebMatrix , which is an importants tool for building ASP.NET application. B:Book is extremely redable. easy to understand , well organized. C:The book ius written for absolute begginer.
Rating:
Summary: Great Beginners Book
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Developer Review
Review: This is a terrible starter book, going into intricate detail about how to use MS Web Matrix, and ignoring getting a person started in really programming in asp.net. When finished you'll be well accomplished in using Web Matrix and won't have a clue how to start writing any more then the most simplistic code. If i heard 'however thats beyond the scope of this book' one more time....@#$@#$#$. Do yourself a favor, and find a better starter.
Rating: 
Summary: More Like How to Use Web Matrix
Review: This is a terrible starter book, going into intricate detail about how to use MS Web Matrix, and ignoring getting a person started in really programming in asp.net. When finished you'll be well accomplished in using Web Matrix and won't have a clue how to start writing any more then the most simplistic code. If i heard 'however thats beyond the scope of this book' one more time....@#$@#$#$. Do yourself a favor, and find a better starter.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for establishing a foundation for ASP.NET
Review: This is an excellent book if you are new to .NET or have done some work on ASP and want to move to ASP.NET. I bought some books on ASP.NET in 2001 and started learning about it. But those earlier books were too detail and you had to enter every line of code (as well as HTML) by hand using the Notepad. I was lost in the details and did not get the big picture. Finally, after getting Scott's book, things begin to make sense. The best part is that he uses Web Matrix as the development tool. It is free and very powerful. It eliminated having to code all those details and I could focus on understanding how things work. I now understand what a Web Control is, what "Runat Server" means, how to handle postback forms and how to display a datagrid painlessly and with nice looking formats. I now appreciate what ASP.NET can do for me as opposed to ASP. I can't wait to professionally deploy my web sites with ASP.NET.
BTW, you should get the latest version of Web Matrix for asp.net site as it supports Access database as well as SQL Server. I am now ready for Scott's next book - on Web Controls. The only question that I still have not been able to answer is how to deploy or even test ASP.NET with my publicly shared hosted web site. Currently, with ASP, I am able to use ODBC connection to the database as these sites do not allow such things as "Data Source=C:\Databases\...\Books.mdb". I am able to use "DSN=MyDSN_Name" with ASP. I guess that I may have to read further about ADO.NET. An excellent book, but you must do each exercise fully to appreciate ASP.NET!
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