Rating: 
Summary: Fairly good structure; Mostly for VB.NET programmers
Review: I concur with other reviewers on the following points:
1) The organization is good and focuses strictly on the relevant web classes in .NET.
2) The documentation, however, is more or less a repeat of ASP.NET information from MSDN. In a lot of O'Reilley Nutshell books, the authors typically add more insight to the classes they cover that the official documentation does not. With this book, I really did not get that impression.
If you need an offline version of the MSDN documentation, this is great. Another detraction is that the book does not come with a documentation add-in CD like the other .NET in a Nutshell books.
3) The most egregious fault with this book is that the authors do NOT tell you that the book is mostly in VB.NET syntax. I'm trying to learn C# and the book's latter parts is all VB.NET. I really wish the authors were upfront about this, so I could save myself some money. *sigh*
Future ASP.NET Authors: If you're going to write about ASP.NET, please specify, somewhere on the cover or in the introduction, the language you will be using for examples.
C# programmers may be better off reading Programming ASP.NET by Jesse Libery and Dan Hurwitz or similar books, which uses C# for its examples.
Rating:
Summary: Great Reference, if you program in VB.net
Review: I hunted high and low for this title. Lots of titles coming from the established publishers are not worth buying these days, but the "in a Nutshell" series is always a safe bet. In this case it's a great bet if you're coding in VB.net. 90% of the context examples are in VB and nearly ALL of the reference examples are in VB.net - the C# programmer in you will have to keep looking for that one good portable reference.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference -- So-So Tutorial
Review: I picked this particular book because it was by O'Reilly, and their reference "ASP in a Nutshell" is excellent. However, that other book is by a different author, and ASP.NET is far more complex than classic ASP.The dilemma the authors faced was that if they wanted to create an excellent reference at a reasonable price, they had to skimp on creating a good tutorial. Well, they succeeded in creating an excellent reference at a fair price. The book is almost 800 pages, and I think they used the space very well. But as other reviewers have noted, if you need a slower-paced introduction, you will need another book. O'Reilly & Associates have apparently realized this, because they also publish "Programming ASP.NET" (which I know little about). To me, the authors seem to be very knowledgeable. The book is well-organized and doesn't skimp on any ASP.NET topics. They know "classic" ASP extremely well, which is helpful if you yourself are migrating from classic ASP. C# and other non-VB programmers will notice a slight bias towards Visual Basic .NET, but honestly this shouldn't be a problem for anybody, especially if you were used to switching between VBScript and JScript in "classic" ASP. If I could change one thing about the book, it would be the introduction to ADO.NET. ADO.NET only bears a superficial resemblance to "classic" ADO, and the bound ASP.NET data controls are completely new. Yet the chapter that covers them is only 23 pages long. The chapter is explicitly written as an overview, but if you have no other printed reference handy the chapter ends up being just a teaser. The examples in that chapter are fairly similar to the ones in the MDSN library, which are quite "lazy". I would have gladly paid another $2.20 for 50 more pages to expand upon the topic. Instead I will have to find some good examples on the web somewhere, or buy another book (not likely). I don't own any other ASP.NET books, but I can say that if you could only buy one ASP.NET book, this one would be a good choice.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference -- So-So Tutorial
Review: I picked this particular book because it was by O'Reilly, and their reference "ASP in a Nutshell" is excellent. However, that other book is by a different author, and ASP.NET is far more complex than classic ASP. The dilemma the authors faced was that if they wanted to create an excellent reference at a reasonable price, they had to skimp on creating a good tutorial. Well, they succeeded in creating an excellent reference at a fair price. The book is almost 800 pages, and I think they used the space very well. But as other reviewers have noted, if you need a slower-paced introduction, you will need another book. O'Reilly & Associates have apparently realized this, because they also publish "Programming ASP.NET" (which I know little about). To me, the authors seem to be very knowledgeable. The book is well-organized and doesn't skimp on any ASP.NET topics. They know "classic" ASP extremely well, which is helpful if you yourself are migrating from classic ASP. C# and other non-VB programmers will notice a slight bias towards Visual Basic .NET, but honestly this shouldn't be a problem for anybody, especially if you were used to switching between VBScript and JScript in "classic" ASP. If I could change one thing about the book, it would be the introduction to ADO.NET. ADO.NET only bears a superficial resemblance to "classic" ADO, and the bound ASP.NET data controls are completely new. Yet the chapter that covers them is only 23 pages long. The chapter is explicitly written as an overview, but if you have no other printed reference handy the chapter ends up being just a teaser. The examples in that chapter are fairly similar to the ones in the MDSN library, which are quite "lazy". I would have gladly paid another $2.20 for 50 more pages to expand upon the topic. Instead I will have to find some good examples on the web somewhere, or buy another book (not likely). I don't own any other ASP.NET books, but I can say that if you could only buy one ASP.NET book, this one would be a good choice.
Rating: 
Summary: I buy a lot of books this one is one of the best
Review: I really liked this book and its format. Perhaps it was just me but everytime I was looking for a particular solution I found it quickly. The book unlike some other nutshell books actaully does a very very good job of explaining the concepts as you code which is exactly the way I like to work.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a focused book
Review: I'm afraid I disagree with most of the reviews. This book is divided in three sections:
1-A "fast-paced introduction to ASP.NET" (ch.1-11, p.1-228)
2-A "detailed reference to most frequently used ASP.NET classes" (ch.12-20)and,
3-A "Quick reference" of the ASP-related namespaces(ch.21-38) My comments:
1-The fast-paced intro reads rather like a list than an actual intro. I mean you don't really get the picture of what .NET, or the elements described here, is about. And, though it certainly aims at programmers with previous experience, its code examples are not focused on the topic discussed but wastes pages upon pages by showing context code as well(which could have been clearly implied). So if you know the things covered here, it's a waste, if you don't know them you are not going to get any useable info. Finally occupying roughly the 1/3 of the book it could really get off the way. 2-The reference of the most used classes is nothing you couldn't find in the framework's documendation. Yes, it's focused on web-related classes and more handy maybe than the on-line reference but that's not a big deal. The big deal is, though, that it does not give you a better insight into the programming logic they supply. So what's the benefit? 3-The quick namespace reference part is the best one(compared to others). It has a UML formatted diagram of each namespace followed by a short description of its classes each with a list of its methods and properties. The diagrams are good and give you a panoramic view but an index of the UML notation is missing. Also the methods and properties of the classes are just listed and not described so what's the use if you need additional reference resources? It would have been better if this part were more detailed and covered the whole book. This would make it a real reference. Overall, I found the book confused about its target reader, mixing too much with too little, certainly unbalanced, and the explanations a bit "wooden" and messy,lucking crispness and in the bottom line it is not a book you could use as complete reference by itself.
Rating:
Summary: Not a focused book
Review: I'm afraid I disagree with most of the reviews. This book is divided in three sections:
1-A "fast-paced introduction to ASP.NET" (ch.1-11, p.1-228)
2-A "detailed reference to most frequently used ASP.NET classes" (ch.12-20)and,
3-A "Quick reference" of the ASP-related namespaces(ch.21-38) My comments:
1-The fast-paced intro reads rather like a list than an actual intro. I mean you don't really get the picture of what .NET, or the elements described here, is about. And, though it certainly aims at programmers with previous experience, its code examples are not focused on the topic discussed but wastes pages upon pages by showing context code as well(which could have been clearly implied). So if you know the things covered here, it's a waste, if you don't know them you are not going to get any useable info. Finally occupying roughly the 1/3 of the book it could really get off the way. 2-The reference of the most used classes is nothing you couldn't find in the framework's documendation. Yes, it's focused on web-related classes and more handy maybe than the on-line reference but that's not a big deal. The big deal is, though, that it does not give you a better insight into the programming logic they supply. So what's the benefit? 3-The quick namespace reference part is the best one(compared to others). It has a UML formatted diagram of each namespace followed by a short description of its classes each with a list of its methods and properties. The diagrams are good and give you a panoramic view but an index of the UML notation is missing. Also the methods and properties of the classes are just listed and not described so what's the use if you need additional reference resources? It would have been better if this part were more detailed and covered the whole book. This would make it a real reference. Overall, I found the book confused about its target reader, mixing too much with too little, certainly unbalanced, and the explanations a bit "wooden" and messy,lucking crispness and in the bottom line it is not a book you could use as complete reference by itself.
Rating:
Summary: O'Reilly at it's best
Review: I've been reading O'Reilly since the days of the tiny fifty page staple-bound brown Nutshell books that covered shell commands and the first version of Perl. This book is that has taken that same approach to data condensation and applied it to everything you need to know about ASP.NET. And extend they have at almost a thousand pages it is far heavier than the original books, but that doesn't make it any less worthwhile. The first section covers all of the conceptual introductions to the topics, .NET controls, web services, configuration and security and all of the basics. The second section covers each section of the class library in a concise and consistent form that make it so much easier to grab for the book before you even press F1 to bring up the MSDN. Where necessary they include code fragments to demonstrate the point along with the explanatory text but it is never overblown or unnecessary. This isn't light bedtime reading but it is an invaluable reference to sit next to the keyboard of any ASP.NET programmer.
Rating:
Summary: Great for VB Developers
Review: If you're a C# developer and you don't feel like converting all the VB code to C# code in your head, don't buy this book. The last 300 pages of reference have all the method signatures and what not in VB syntax. Pretty painful to use as a C# developer. I'm returning mine and looking for another reference.
Rating:
Summary: I keep this book within arm's reach
Review: If you're serious about knowing all the nooks and crannies of ASP.NET then have this book on standby at all times. I haven't read every page in it yet since it's so much of a reference manual (covers all the web namespaces) but when I'm stuck on something it has in most cases been able to solve the problem for me. I've been turning to this book if I need to know the name of a method or property or what namespace it's located in or if I want a particular functionality but need to find out if such a function even exists. This book has helped me in those areas. You won't get the most benefit from this book until you're at least at a comfortable level with ASP.NET so don't try to learn it from scratch from this book. Have at least one good ASP.NET book under your belt first.
Happy Coding!
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