Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: I have never been so disappointed in a book as I am in this one. I am fairly new to ASP and ADO and was excited when I found this book. However, as pointed out in the other reviews, this book is one to stay away from. For one thing, the author repeatedly makes references to the CD-ROM, but as he notes in the editorial review, there is no CD. I purchased the book mainly for the Integrating With Databases section (Chpts 10-14.) After reading through these 5 chapters, I am more confused than ever. The examples are so full of bugs as to be worthless. For example, in Chpts 11 and 12, in some code segments he uses 'Request()' and others 'Request.QueryString()'. I went to his web page to download the code, and they are nothing similar to what is shown in the book. In the book he uses method=gets and in the online code he uses method=post. Let us hope that the Author (Mr. Smith) reads these reviews and puts the corrected code on his Web page or gets out of the Writing business! Save your (money)and buy something else! Chalmers
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: I picked up ASP programming about a year ago. I purchased this book in order to refine my code and to expand my existing ASP knowledge. Instead, I have become frustrated with the syntax errors throughout this book. The font cover proclaims - "Ready-to-run sample code for real-world challenges". It would better read - "Ready to frustrate sample errors for real-world headaches".
Rating:
Summary: Not the best book to start with
Review: I today recived my copy of "THE BIBLE", this is not a book for people starting out with ASP. The book is full of massive ERRORS, and I`m really supprised the author let this book go to market. I feel as a personal choice the author for all he suggests he has a MCSD goes on a further course for proof reading. The 2 best books on the market for ASP are, Sams Active Server Pages 3.0 and Sams E-Commerce Programming in 21 days. So do yourself a favour and give this a total miss.
Rating: 
Summary: WebClass coverage
Review: I'll tell you why I give this 5 stars: Not only does it cover WebClasses, but it does it very well. WebClasses are a compiled ASP project in Visual Basic. You could argue that coverage of this doesn't belong in a book on ASP, but I'm glad it's here. The very clever trick in listing 17-21 will allow me to reduce my application template processing from thousands of lines to a few dozen. For this, I figure the $40 price was very well worth it. If it's full of bugs, well - maybe that'll help in practicing debugging :-) I haven't yet tried the discussion forum, but this kind of "non-trivial" example is so much better than what you usually get. As in so many computer books these days, the appendices are (to me) unnecessary and add to the weight of the book. I have lots of HTML books, so I have no use for appendix B's 50 pages.
Rating:
Summary: I'm very disappointed
Review: I've learned my lesson - don't choose a book by reading the table of contents and flipping through the pages at the bookstore. I wanted a resource to help me familiarize myself with ASP from the ground up - and found this wasn't it. The first chapter is a basic HTML reference with a single brief statement that ASP integrates with HTML, but no example of how. The second and third chapters give an overview of VBScript. There is absolutely no mention of how VBScript relates to ASP. By the time I got to chapter 4 I had still had no idea what an ASP page looks like. I was able to find out by referring to tutorials on the Web, but was left wondering why I paid for this book. Chapter 4 is on Server-Side Includes. There is detailed information on each directive, but nothing on how to actually use them other than the statement "One other point to note is that none of these directives except for #include will work within ASP files. The directives will only work within files that have extensions configured to be processed through the SSI DLL." I don't know what these extensions might be or what these non-ASP files look like. So I've relied on tedious (and so far unsuccessful) experimentation to figure out how to use them. I'm hoping the bookstore will allow me to exchange this book for something more useful.
Rating: 
Summary: Code Samples Online at ASPTechniques.com
Review: Instead of putting a CD-ROM in the book, I decided to make all the code available online at my web site, ASP Techniques (asptechniques.com). Be sure to visit the site for additional content, more information about ASP 3.0 as it is available, and more!
Rating:
Summary: The Most Comprehensive Book I've Ever Seen
Review: It is for those whom are looking for the right book to start learning Active Server Pages. It covers Every needed topic to be able to start with: 1) First chapter It covers HTML essentials. 2) Chapter 2 and 3 , covering VBScript Essentials. 3) There is no CD included, to force the readers to write the Example's code by hand. 4) Well organized, and it moves from topic to another very smoothly. A very good refernce ito be owned.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been a great book
Review: The author is very knowledgeable and the example application used throughout the book is a good one. Instructive, thorough, and representative. The QA, however, is lacking. It's clear that no one sat down and tested all the sample code. There's no CD with the book and the sample code that you can download from the author's web site is incomplete and buggy. It's too bad that the author's hard work is spoiled by a lack of testing.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been a great book
Review: The author is very knowledgeable and the example application used throughout the book is a good one. Instructive, thorough, and representative. The QA, however, is lacking. It's clear that no one sat down and tested all the sample code. There's no CD with the book and the sample code that you can download from the author's web site is incomplete and buggy. It's too bad that the author's hard work is spoiled by a lack of testing.
Rating:
Summary: Great book but too many syntax errors.
Review: The book has all the information you will need if you are a newbie like me with ASP. The errors can be a little annoying but if you pay attention, you'll catch them right away. If they fix all the errors in the next edition, this book will be a 5 star book.
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