ASP.NET for Dummies

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for Beginners
Review: I read this book in 2.5 weeks. It's short and clear. I have not touched serious a web programming language for about 2 years
and this book reintroduced me to this world easily and without the stress of expected previous understanding.

I learned the basics of VB.NET and ASP.NET and I can now adapt basic applications to suit my needs.

I am not saying you should read this without any understanding of the web. It assumes some basic knowledge but most persons interested in ASP.NET already have this knowledge already.

You will need other books if you want to go deep into databases or other neat stuff in ASP.NET but if you want a solid hands-on introduction, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! I understand ASP.Net!
Review: I was thinking for a while that it was about time I learnt more about '.Net' technologies. I came across this book in a shop and began leafing through it. Straightaway I knew I was onto something special (in particular, the 'I know who you are section' was uncannily accurate). I read a couple of chapters and was so impressed that I checked Amazon to see if anyone else agreed with me. It was no surprise to see 5 out of 5 across the board. I have since used the rest of the book and now have to add a 5 myself.

Some of the Dummies books are criticised for being too simplistic. Although this one is clear and easy to understand, it really does take you to a point where you can build complex, usable .Net based websites.

I used to do a fair amount of programming using the old 'Classic ASP' and was slightly apprehensive about how the new stuff in ASP.Net, such as Object Orientated Programming would be explained in ASP.Net for Dummies. I need not have worried - it is done brilliantly.

Whatever you (and others - just check the Amazon ratings) think of other Dummies books, this one really is a class apart.

Rating:
Summary: Too much Web Forms
Review: I've been doing web development for over 7 years. I have a Computer Science Degree and have written 3 books on ColdFusion. I bought this book for a really quick intro to .NET development.

Did I get it? Yes! The book seemed to be very well organized. The writing was solid and straight forward. I had no problem understanding or reading this book. I thought the chapter explaining how to get data out of a database was particularly good.

Now I can't give this book five stars. Why? There is too much information on web forms (I believe it was 5 chapters). The author tells us to forget everything we know about regular HTML forms. Web Forms are just a layer of abstraction over regular HTML forms (They submit onto themselves), it seems like a bad approach to understanding them. A full chapter is dedicated to 'fixing' web forms to deal with problems that come up when a form that submits onto itself. I don't see the benefit of using them and everyone I've spoken to who uses them is having major performance issues in production.

I can understand that web forms are a big thing touted by microsoft, but I would have preferred to see less real estate for web forms and have other topics, such as error handling, put into this book.

J

Rating:
Summary: Great book for .net beginners
Review: If you are a novice to asp.net, I strongly recommend this book. It doesn't cover much database access stuff but perfect for understanding .NET web forms etc.

Rating:
Summary: A great book for the ASP.NET beginner
Review: In its 420 printed pages, ASP.NET for Dummies covers the key topics to get you up and running with ASP.NET. You learn the basics of obtaining and displaying information on your sites. You learn how to use built-in functions such as date routines, math routines, and browser routines. You even learn how to work with data and databases on the server. This includes coverage of Active Data Objects (ADO) - a key way of doing database access. Building ASP.NET Web forms is covered in detail along with using server side controls ranging from radio buttons to drop down lists. Programming topics such as arrays, array lists, and hash tables are also explained as well as shown in examples.

While ASP.NET for Dummies is "for Dummies," you should already be familiar with programming concepts. As with most Active Server Page-related books, ASP.NET for Dummies uses Visual Basic .NET as its choice of programming languages. If you don't know Visual Basic .NET, don't fret. The book spends several chapters teaching the basics of what you need to know in order to program for ASP.NET. If you have never programmed before, you will most likely find that this moves too fast. However, if you know a scripting language such as JavaScript or VBScript you should have no trouble keeping up with the coverage of Visual Basic .NET in this book.

It is worth pointing out that this book doesn't stop at just covering the creation of ASP.NET pages, but it also covers creating full-fledge ASP.NET applications. The book presents a couple of ASP.NET applications that are larger and more practical than standard book examples. Within the text of the book a chat room and a classified application are both included. On the CD there is also a guest book application. Code for all three applications is on the CD.

The CD with this book is worth noting. Most ASP.NET books don't include a CD, let alone a CD with lots of useful stuff. This CD has five bonus chapters containing over a hundred additional pages. It also contains the author's source code so you don't have to hunt it down on the Web. A number of third party software products are also included. Some of these you may not find useful. Others such as the editors you may find extremely valuable.

Will ASP.NET for Dummies make you an expert ASP.NET developer? The answer is no, it won't make you an expert, however, no beginning level ASP.NET book will. What ASP.NET for Dummies will do is get you up and running with the foundational topics necessary for creating real-world ASP.NET pages. Once you are done with this book, you'll be able to create a wide variety of ASP.NET pages. If you are going to create professional-level pages, you will want to follow this book up with an intermediate advanced book.

In summary, if you have a little programming background, then you should be ready for ASP.NET. If you want a book that teaches you the basics of implementing ASP.NET in a relatively straightforward manner, then ASP.NET for Dummies accomplishes the task. With a price of only (...) including a CD containing valuable content, I have to give this book five stars. It is definitely worth the cost. In fact, I would say this book is under-priced (...) --which seems unusual for a computer book these days! If you can get a copy of this book at a discount, then this book is a steal!

One final note, a number of excellent ASP sites are not mentioned in the book. This includes ASP101.com. 15seconds.com, 4GuysFromRolla.com, ASPWire.com and more.

Rating:
Summary: A great introduction!
Review: Lately, I had become more and more interested in the .NET framework and the potential it help. Where I work, we do a lot of development of ASP pages at work so I was particularly curious what this new framework held for shops like ours. After plowing through a detailed book on the .NET Framework, I had a much better idea of how things work, but I really didn't know what it does. Then I ran across this book. This book was the perfect introduction I was looking for - it went step by step through things so that both the beginner, who may not have done as much ASP coding before, as well as the experienced user could see what was going on. Areas compare and contrast "classic ASP" vs. ASP.NET but there is no dwelling on it. Rather the focus is on showing you, coming in cold, what ASP.NET can mean, get your foot in the door with simple examples, and let you go out to the more technical books from there. It's a quick reference for trying to make the transition to a new system, and getting up to speed. Highly recommended, even for the experienced coder who wants to skim and see how implementations have changed (and yes, they are changed - hopefully for the better).

In addition, the companion CD is an invaluable tool in itself, with additional chapters including a very good quick overview of databases and such, as well as actual useful code for projects that lets you match up function with code in a real world situation beyond "Hello World." A great package deal.

Rating:
Summary: Great for transition from ASP to ASP.NET
Review: Man...I always start off these reviews with a good idea in my head and end up blank when I go to type it! Anyways...I'm an intermediate ASP developer and have been hacking away at ASP pages for a good three years now. Making the jump to ASP.NET was a scary proposition! The reason is that I've been an avid Dreamweaver user and didn't want to switch to M$'s rather funky software just to do coding. Nope! No can do! Don't force me to have to switch back and forth between two different coding environments! So the trick for me was to learn the basics of ASP.NET and then learn how to encorporate it into Dreamweaver.

On that note, I picked up this book as a good jumping off point. I gave the book 4 stars simply because, although it indeed accomplishes it's goal, it's by no means perfect. For someone transitioning from ASP to ASP.NET, the writer does a good job referencing the differences between the two as he goes along. He also does a good job starting off with the basics. He works from the most simplest of concepts (variables and delimiters) to the most advanced (ADO connections) in a step-by-step manner. It's a quick read for any seasoned ASP developer. Not all ASP developers will get entirely what they want out of this book...but some will. For the beginner though, this book is a pretty darn good jumping off point. Even if you don't entirely understand everything you're looking, just know that you can always go back and review what you've learned. Just remember that this book is not a thorough how-to book...it's more of a prep-book for a more advanced how-to book. Not perfect...but darn close! :D

Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money!
Review: Save your money! This book isn't worth the paper it is written on. After trying to use this book and becoming frustrated trying to use the examples in this book I decided to ask a friend my mine how is an ASP.Net expert to help me. After looking at several of the examples in this book it quickly became apparent to him that the problem was not me but the book examples. According to three other ASP.Net developers that I work with it was also apparent to them that what Bill Hatfield did was take some classic ASP code and add a few ASP.Net syntax to code making the code example not correct. According to several of the ASP developers I spoke with, Bill Hatfield, is a person known in the ASP development world as one who knows little about ASP and nothing about ASP.Net and is only interested in selling books (making or taking your money). Again, don't waste your money or time with this book. If you are serious about learning ASP.Net I would strongly recommand you buy "ASP.Net Unleashed, Second Edition.

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: The authors make this programming language/enviroment easy to learn. It gives you a basic start on the language. By start I don't just mean you can get around in it, but you also can start making your own web applications. It does give you a basic tutorial for database programming with ASP.NET, but if you need to work with them then I'd get the ASP.NET Database Programming for Dummies too.

Rating:
Summary: Only scratches the surface!
Review: There is so much depth to asp.net that a "For Dummies" book can't possibly begin to do the subject justice.

In making the jump from classic ASP to ASP.NET I purchased this book first and found that it did not even come close to teaching me what I needed to know about dynamic page generation and database driven content.

This book would be a good place to start if you are completely new to web site development and would like to just get your feet wet, but if your versed in classic ASP and are looking to migrate, then I would suggest ASP.Net Unleased instead.

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