Rating: 
Summary: Teaching this old dog...
Review: ..some new tricks! Glad i picked this book up, because now i feel comfortable working with .NET. I already knew some VB, so some of the material in Chapter 2 was review, but all the object-oriented topics were new to me and easy to understand. The lab code samples were of good quality, too. I've never seen so much good information on ASP.NET. Crouch was very complete in his coverage in this area and provided many good examples that i was able to use in my projects. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: .NET technology is specifically tailored for internet applications and the title of this book includes Web Programming. In fact there is very little coverage of web programming. The entire section on VB.NET covers only console applications. We are almost half-way through the book (if you ignore the 140 plus pages of appendices and index at the end) before a step-by-step guide to creating a (very simple) web application is given.
Most of the book consists of tedious listings of available controls and their properties/methods - is not that what the user manual is for? Code samples are almost childish, like displaying a message stating which check boxes have been selected. In the intro Crouch states the book is aimed at software developers. If so, why spend so much of the book explaining the simple in detail and skipping over the difficult concepts that are new to VB.NET. OOP is not new or exclusive ot VB.NET so why should it be covered here? And why having covered OOP, does Crouch then proceed to totally ignore the concept in his samples? Nowhere does Mr Crouch explain how to use his code samples, which are usually separate HTML and VB code, in the .NET framework. Loads of topics covered come without any code samples at all (yes, you've guessed it, the complicated or difficult parts).
The book also covers ADO.NET. Why? If I wanted a book on ADO.NET, then that is what I would buy. Ironically, the code included with the section on ADO.NET is much more practical than in the rest of the book. Pity the same standard could not have been applied throughout. I strongly recommend you buy something else.
Rating:
Summary: I highly recommend this book!
Review: ASP.Net and VB.NET Web Programming provides an excellent resource for the web professional wishing to gain an understanding of .NET web programming with VB.NET. I was surprised at how easy it was to get answers concerning the mechanics of VB.NET web programming. Every item I had a question about or wondered about I was able to get an answer quickly. Eventhough I have been learning and working with VB.NET for awhile, I found the overview chapter on VB.NET insightful. Particularly the explanations of polymorphism, inheritance and multithreading. I highly recommend this book for web professional wishing to learn ASP.NET using VB.NET. ---Reviewed by Scott M.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough introduction to ASP/VB.NET
Review: At 740 pages this book provides an excellent introduction to using VB.NET for web development. It's well-illustrated with many examples. And the author responded to my e-mail inquiry about the book's source files within 24 hours. VB.NET is a steep step up from Visual Basic 6; this text eases the transition considerably. If you're already familiar with previous versions of VB you can pretty much skip Chapter 2. Otherwise that chapter presents a concise crash course in some essential VB functions.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Book
Review: Disorganized....ADO.NET example in chapter 7 doesn't even make any sense if you follow it....Errors throughout...download of examples doesn't even have the examples from the book....
Rating:
Summary: Bad Book
Review: I am an experienced HTML, PHP and Javascript developper. I recenctly decided I would like to pick up VB.net for web development and maybe pass 70-305. I just finished VB.net Step-by-Step and was pretty happy. I bought this book based on the reviews and I have to say I am frustrated and disappointed. First off, most of the book is spent making console applications, not web applications. Second, there are no clear tutorials or labs that allow you to practice or apply what you have learned. Lots of code snippets and incomplete programs that aren't terribly clear. Lots of theory, not much application Finally, the author assumes knowledge that hasn't been demonstrated in the book to date when giving examples or using terminology. For someone who is unfamiliar with the MS programming world, it can very confusing. All in all I'm not impressed.
Rating:
Summary: I hated this book.
Review: I could not stand to read this book. Either the chapter was too basic or it was irrelevant to me. The author gives a lot of code samples without showing the output. I skimmed over most of the book without reading much of it at all. There was only 1 chapter in the entire book that was good, and that was the chapter on ado.net. I am getting rid of this book as soon as possible. If you have ever worked with VB before, save your money and buy something else.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Experienced C++ or Java Programmer
Review: I have many years of experience designing and implementing C++ and Java OO applications and bought the book because I wanted to learn both VB.NET and ASP.NET. I was very happy to find that I had made an excellent choice when I bought this book. The VB.NET crash course was exactly what I needed to start to understand both VB and the principles behind .NET. I found the rest of the book lived up to the very good start. I especially liked the fact that the examples were closely related to real life kinds of business problems. I highly recommend the book for anyone in a similar situation.
Rating:
Summary: This book is all wore-out... from overuse.
Review: I have purchased many .NET books, but please believe me that 'ASP.NET and VB.NET Web Programming' is one of the best -- the kind of book you drag around with you for reference. The most basic programmer wanting to learn ASP.NET and VB.NET will be comfortable and will profit from reading the book ... . The more sohisticated programmer can extract chunks of the many sample programs save from 20%-30% project developemnt (I know, I have jump-started at least 6 projects with cut & paste sample code). When I activate web controls that are unfamiliar to me -- I open the book, glance at the example, and I am up & runnin'. One negative about Matt Crouch's book: It is all wore out, with dog-eared pages:>) ...
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and consciece
Review: I recently purchased this book to get up to speed on .NET technologies, as i'm now engaged in some new development at work that requires some Web Services and ASP.NET applications. As a long time VB programmer, i was looking for material on VB's new object-oriented language features, plus how .NET fit into the existing COM+ component model. I found all kinds of useful stuff regarding that, plus great and numerous code samples on the most important parts of the .NET Framework. All in all, well worth the buy.
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