Rating: 
Summary: Great book if you have solid programming experience
Review: Walter Nicolau's words mirror my thoughts exactly. I couldnt say it better than him. For the totally uninitiated this book is going to be frustrating, you will need at least a thorough understanding of one programming language( in order to comprehend the logic) and although a basic html is enough. I would say if you really want to master this book in 21 days, strong html experience is needed plus experience in script programming. Bottom line, I agree this book has too ambitious agenda, it would be better renamed "Learn ASP.NET in 21 days for ASP programmers" because it goes into detail about what is difference between ASP.NET and ASp, plus the author has background in ASP previously. I had only been traversing this book for 6 days, and was disappointed by the 6th day answer key. The calculator source code that is given was really buggy, to me this is inexcusible. Don't get me wrong, the exercises are great and challenging, understanding them would indeed help in reinforcing the knowledge that you have gained in each chapter. However the 6th day exercise would really take about 2-8 hrs programming time (4 for me) to get it done from scratch. Day by day the exercises in the book is getting more and more complex, so I figured I would just go through the answer key and learn from there. However, I was so disappointed finding that the answer code is way less correct than mine :o . Looks like this book was released in a rush ;) , I was even more disappointed that there's no errata correcting this error. Bottom line, if you are confident about your programming skills and not a beginner than this book will still be a great value to you. If you are a beginner, who has only made your own personal homepage (by notepad/homesite, not using frontpage or MS Word), then I wouldnt recommend this book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Chris, this book is great!
Review: After literally stalking the bookstores nearest me for the last couple of weeks, I finally found a copy on the other side of town, and took the drive to get it. This is already in demand! I'm a big fan of any TY in 21 days titles, and this book is no exception. It helped to have programming experience on my side, but learning all the new things there is to learn about ASP.NET is still easy as I finish this book. Rarely do I finish a book cover to cover (it usually ends up on the shelf as a reference) but with the way everything is explained and the examples and programming projects given, I feel really good at the knowledge this book has given me to get an early start on the technology. Thanx a bunch Chris!
Rating: 
Summary: There are much better choices then this book
Review: I have many years as a VB developer and found this book leaving me with the feeling of "where do I start, and what am I missing?" I then picked up Murach's ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET.
ISBN 1-890774-20-0. Murach's book is the best on ASP .NET. Thank goodness for Amazon, I sold the Sam's book, hopefully that person will be able to get use from it, I could not.
Rating:
Summary: Good beginning to intermediate work
Review: If you are a beginner with ASP.NET, you should find that there is plenty of material to get you up to speed with ASP.NET. Unlike some of the 21 days series, this book gets into some really meaty subjects. The book on data access is well worth the price of admission. In fact, it is easier to read and understand than the code intensive "Professional ASP.NET" book from Wrox, which is not a bad book either. This makes it a better beginners book, hands down. If you are advanced, you will find a lot of material, esp. if you have not touched on ADO.NET very much. The common ASP.NET mistakes will help some more advanced programmers, although Dan Appleman's VB.NET book is much better at this. My personal beef with the book is most of the code is written in the ASPX page itself, rather than CodeBehind. The book does cover CodeBehind, but puts it almost as an aside. The separation of code and UI into separate files is one of the primary strengths with ASP.NET, IMHO. This is true of the Wrox book, as well. After running through this book, I was inclined to lower my rating of Professional ASP.NET a notch. This book is better written, and runs together better. I still like the Wrox book, but I think this one will have more value to a person just getting into ASP.NET. Too much of the Wrox book is not beta 2 compliant (not a whole lot, but more than this book). This book hits closer to home. Good job, Chris.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but somewhat useful book
Review: Chris Payne seems to know what he's talking about with ASP.NET development. Not knowing his audience is the major flaw. Is this book aimed at professional developers with lots of experience or beginning developers trying to learn ASP.NET? If I were to answer this questions as a reader, I'd say that it doesn't help either kind of developer very much. The book seems to lack focus and consistency with regard to its target audience. As an example, how is a beginning reader going to feel when he has all the essentials of VB.NET, C#, and all the object orientation and server objects dumped on him in two chapters (days 3 and 4)? How about Day 6 in which user controls and custom controls are dumped on the reader without adequate explanation and Chris keeps saying things like "this code is standard" (p. 197) while avoiding writing any useful or jargon-free explanation? On the other hand, this book isn't appropriate to an experienced developer either. Lots of items will be boring to an experienced developer. There is often lack of detail or theoretical explanation. Then there are standard things that will bore the experienced developer. Here's the standard, simplified explanation of objects again. There's the explanation of loops and if statements to skim over. The "Hello World" example in Day 6 that makes things complicated, yet uninteresting seems especially inappropriate. Visual Studio.NET is barely mentioned, although I suspect most ASP.NET devopers will be using it. Many practical issues (deployment, caching, etc.) just get ignored or glossed over, also. In the end I found this book frustrating since it doesn't serve either a beginning or an intermediate/advanced developer very well. If you're serious about learning ASP.NET you can learn it from this book, but the author hasn't done the work for the reader to make it well-paced, easier, or more enjoyable. You'll feel like you're pushing through sludge as you work through this book. It does present the material it claims to, but you get the feeling that this book was written quickly, with little sympathy for the reader, and no time for revisions. It's a loss for the reader that it was written this way since the author seems to know his stuff. Now if he could only explain it a little better.
Rating:
Summary: Tutorial-Based Introduction to ASP.NET
Review: I am a C++/UNIX developer and this is my first .NET book. It teaches by example and gives broad coverage of several topics which provide the basis for developing two full featured web applications. The approach is to teach individual topics in daily lessons and then at the end of each week, use the newly aquired skills to "flesh out" a Banking web site. It was important for me to have working examples as a context to learn new skills, but the book is light on theory and has opened quite a few questions that I am now studying (Web Services and Remoting in particular) However, certain areas like ADO.NET, I felt gave adequate coverage and I do not feel compelled to study further. I wish the book had more information on the .NET framework. This is a good primer to ASP.NET and .NET development with a broad range of coverage and good examples, but is not a great reference. It is a little too basic (just a little. . ) for an experienced developer, but the broad range of coverage and working exmaples make the book worthwhile. Few of the "reference style" .NET books provide more than short code snippets, while this ties everything together in useful applications. I would recommend this book to those who are new to Web Development and .NET but caution that this will not be the last .NET book you buy.
Rating:
Summary: Code doesn't work!!
Review: As I'm going through this book, I notice that a lot of the code doesn't work as it is written in the book. I also was unable to download the code from their website and get it to work. I am constantly getting a host of errors though I've typed the code perfectly from the book. I find that the help file in Visual Studio.NET provides me with working code that has subtle differences from the book.
Rating:
Summary: Teach Yourself ASP.Net with Payne
Review: From the introduction: "Previous programming is not required, but will help immensely" (page 1). Correction: programming experience IS required and will indeed help immensely. "The only must-have prerequisites are a basic knowledge of HTML and some familiarity with your operating system" (page 2). Correction: In order to be able to follow the examples, you need to be familiar with C#, VB, and XML programming languages and understand what .NET delivers and how to install its components on your machine because you will need all these to run your examples, exercises, and projects. Having said this, I move to state that the master ASP in 21 days does not look like a realistic goal. In fact, if you are a beginner, chances are that by day three you will be thoroughly confused (and maybe even frustrated). According to my view, the main weakness of this book lies in its overly ambitious scope. Although clearly and coherently written, despite its 900 plus pages, Teach Yourself ASP.Net... barely covers the basics and lets you hanging on at topics that need substantial coverage, for example: web forms, user controls, caching, and business objects, to name a few. It does start on an ambitious note with an impressive agenda but the author soon loses touch with his audience and starts using advanced notions without properly explaining their purpose or entangles himself in some awkward phrases: "The if statement on line 18 checks the CheckBox control's Checked property to determine if the check box is checked" (page 163). The learning process is also slowed down by lack of practicality; after going through ten listings where the "Hello World" or "Hello There" outputs are used, one starts to get a little bored. In all fairness though, the book does contain a few interesting projects, which add to its stronger features. Another feature that I disagreed with was the usage of VB and C# languages. The author starts by listing examples using both languages but soon abandons C# almost completely in favor of VB. This is clearly not a book for beginners and one absolutely needs to complement the reading with other books on the subject. As far as the 21 one days goal is concerned, I think that although not incorrect, it is deceiving. It depends on how many hours a day one can set aside for study. If the answer is 24, then, yes, the target is achievable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent starting point
Review: This is the first ASP.NET book I've bought. It provided a great base of knowledge, providing good examples and covering a wide range of areas in .NET. A very good source for ASP programmers moving to .NET, and a good resource book to go back to when you're stuck.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the Novice
Review: I purchased this book to convert from classic ASP to ASP.NET unfortunately the book is littered with mistakes which unless you have some idea of what you are doing you will find difficult to correct yourself. To make matters worse the publishers do not even have errata corrections on their website to point you in the right direction. Unlike OReilly who have errata for all of their books. The book was also written against the Beta release of the software and this raises problems for anyone who is developing with the Gold release. This is not the first SAMS book that we've been unhappy with!
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