Rating: 
Summary: A 18-Year-0ld Beginner's Perspective
Review: Active Server Pages 3.0 from Scratch sets itself apart from a myriad of other ASP books by assuming very little about the readers previous experience or knowledge. When I picked up the book, I was a complete novice who had never even hand coded a page in HTML. One month later, I have a good understanding of the applications introduced in the book, and a basic understanding of ASP that is enabling me to develop my own ASP applications. There are and handful of errors in the book that have to be worked out, but the process of doing so cemented my understanding of the whole process.
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Summary: The pen is mightier than the sword!
Review: An excellent and productive beginning!With all the anti-Microsoft sentiment flying around these days, few of us appreciate and understand the joke. Make it simple, dummy! It is easy to make it hard, but very difficult to make things simple. And, in the world of simplicity, NT is above UNIX, ASP is above pearl or JSP. In line with the 'keep it simple!' philosopy(which actually makes your rich as well), is Nicholas Chase. His book, Active Server Pages 3.0 from scratch, has allowed me to be productive in interacting with my web server and databases within days. If you are interested in being productive very fast, Nick's book is the one. People don't have the time for cryptic codes and gigantic books, they have business to run. This book will definitly allow you to do just that. The pen is surely mightier than the sword!
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Summary: It was the best of times... It was the worst of times...
Review: As a professional technician and HTML guru, I appreciate a book that can take me from the humble beginnings of an electronic concept to the frenzied mastery of that subject. There are many good books out there on the subject of ASP. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. The lesson plans are solid, but WHOEVER proofed this book for typos in the code should be FIRED! If I wasn't already familiar with VBScripting, I'd still be sitting at my desk wondering what I was doing wrong...
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Summary: Mr. Chase handles a complex subject well.
Review: ASP is not as simple as HTML. Speaking from experience, I can say learning ASP can be frustrating. For example, not all web hosting sites will support ASP. Still, in my experience, ASP from Scratch does a good job introducing the beginner to the subject. Before devoting too much time to ASP development, it would be prudent to ask the hosting service how their servers handle interactive programming. Once you know for certain AS Pages are supported you can get started in earnest and "ASP from Scratch" is a good tool to start with. To use this book, you should have a familiarity with HTML. Nicholas Chase walks the reader through the interactivity of ASP from simple to complex very well. The book is well organized and his writing is clear and understandable. Still, due to security and other issues, a web hosting site may require a programmer to use some site specific syntax. Again, a few good questions to the web host's technical support people will serve the reader well. Overall, I can recommend this book to any serious ASP programmer. There are a few typos that the author has corrected and posted at his web site. There aren't many, but a few minutes to insert these corrections before you get started will make your use of the book easier. If you take the time to read and study Mr. Chase's work, you'll learn a lot about ASP's. I have. RJones
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money.
Review: I am in complete agreement with those reviewers who express wonderment that this book has, by some, been awarded five stars, suggesting that the book, as unclear and error-ridden as it is, could not be improved upon. This amazes me. I found the book to be unclear, full of assumptions on the part of the author, scattered, and unfriendly. The information is not concise, does nothing to facilitate a feeling of learning, and provokes only frustration when it sets you find things the book doesn't even have. For example, you are told that instructions regarding the installation of a certain piece of necessary software are to be found in appendix A, but there is no appendix A. Was this book edited by a high school journalism class? Editing issues aside, the book itself, in my humble opinion, is valueless unless you already know what you bought it to learn--which would be at best a strange thing to do. Only after you're well into it are you treated to information informing you that its project targets Windows 2000; if you have Windows 95, the author seems to be saying, "Too bad." Nothing I tried in the book works. Save your money. Go buy something by an author who knows how to write, and by a publishing company that knows how and cares enough to bother to edit.
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Summary: Very good book !
Review: I found this book very easy to read and its examples are very easy to follow. This book teaches you how to program but also discusses helpful tools such as Microsoft's Visual Interdev. I really enjoyed this book from cover to cover. Well worth your time and money.
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Summary: Great book for learning ASP
Review: I found this book very helpful. It walks you through a real world application teaching you the concepts that you need to write good programs. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn ASP in a fast, step-by-step, fun and easy way. Every page counts. The author does not waste time giving long and confusing descriptions. This is one of the best books for the beginner and someone who has experience and wants to improve.
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Summary: Only comes once in a while
Review: I haven't read any good example book since the original core java book. This is a good starting book for learning ASP. Although there are many typos, but it's still a good book. I took few of the examples from the book, modified a bit, and incorporated into our company web site. It servers the purpose well.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Learning Tool!
Review: I personally love "by example" books and this book is certainly that. What better way to learn than having ASP concepts explained in the context of an actual web-site? Nicholas Chase has done an excellent job in defining what you are going to do, explaining how to do it, and then stepping you through the explanation. It's a perfect starting point for learning ASP and VBScript.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Learning Tool!
Review: I personally love "by example" books and this book is certainly that. What better way to learn than having ASP concepts explained in the context of an actual web-site? Nicholas Chase has done an excellent job in defining what you are going to do, explaining how to do it, and then stepping you through the explanation. It's a perfect starting point for learning ASP and VBScript.
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