<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer beware: older than it looks
Review: I bought this book last week, thinking it was a new book because the date is in this year. But, as I started skimming through it, I think now it is really an old book, that has been updated some but not well. How do I think this? Look at many of the screens in chapter 11 (Trace, Log, Error Handling) - they all show dates in 2001 (screen 11-9, 11-10, 11-11)! Same in chapter 17, screen 17-7. Probably many more. If that's when this was really written, .NET 1.0 was still beta then, so this is beta .NET, not even 1.0 even though back of book says 1.1. I haven't found any specific errors yet, but I worry. Only place I see 1.1 mentioned in book so far is in introduction. I see a lot of these old 2001 screens right away but not 1.1. Good thing I got this cheap.
Rating: 
Summary: Object Oriented ASP.Net!
Review: I knew what was the difference between ASP and ASP.Net and wanted to find a book that deals with writing ASP.net page in an object oriented approach. THIS IS THE BOOK. It takes you slowly from the basics of .Net, architecture, whats new etc and has good amount of examples. My perspective about Asp.Net is changing as I'm reading this book.
If you have an asp/vb background this book is great for you. Not a reference book for ASP.Net. So ppl who have already read through ASP.Net in detail please refrain or don't complain. I absolutely love this book and so far I've finished 1/3rd of the book. I'm hoping to finish this book this week and continue on to the book by Fritz Onion.
Rating: 
Summary: Fair at Best
Review: Matthew MacDonald writes an excellent book. He knows how to write well and shows awareness for the reader. I have read several other books on this subject. None come close to this book. The book succeeds because Matthew emphasizes thematically the important topics. He does not bog down in overwhelming you with minor details and leave you wondering how all of it makes sense. He provides many examples to demonstrate the topics. You may download them over the internet. He concludes by using Microsoft's IBuySpy Store and Portal websites. You may download these, install them, and actually work with a real enterprise level example. I had a question which I emailed to him. He replied back to me in less than 24 hours with an answer. I intend to buy more of his books.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book!
Review: The author has done an excellent job in presenting the inner workings of ASP.NET. I used to buy only WROX for my technical book collection but after this, I now have an alternative. Very well presented and straight to the point.
Rating:
Summary: Concise, yet in-depth
Review: The single most useful book I've read on ASP.NET. I was extremely impressed with the meat-to-gravy ratio ( a welcome change from some of the recent WROX books, which unfortunately seem designed to destroy the maximum number of trees and are endlessly repetitious, with the same code sometimes being repeated in VB, then in C#, and occasionally in JScript.NET).
While all the examples are brief, the coverage (in terms of the diversity of problems that are handled) is very extensive. "The Complete Reference" is probably a misnomer, since the online .NET framework documentation is vast, and each topic can only be touched on rather than covered in depth, but this book does a superb job in giving you enough knowledge in being able to make sense of the online docs. The examples are the right degree of complexity, with just enough lines per examples to illustrate a point (such as overriding the Render() method when creating your own control).
The only minor glitch (which would make me give it 4 1/2 stars) is that the README info in the examples file (which you download from MacDonald's site) isn't quite accurate - you MUST create a folder called C:\ASP.NET and make this a virtual directory using Internet Services Manager- if you create any other directory, none of the Visual Studio projects that are part of the bundle will open and run correctly.
Rating:
Summary: The ASP.net bible -- You just can not afford not to have it.
Review: This is "THE" ASP.net I was looking for. I have some other ASP.net books for helping learning/developing. But this one is the most complete I found among the other ones. I'd recommend this one if you are looking for one book that compiles (comprises) everything. It's hard to keep looking all over the place for a piece of information. This book helps to solve that. 5 STARS! For the authors: Good job! Keep up with the great work!
Rating: 
Summary: Not for newbie. Great if u have some ideas already!
Review: This is a good book to learn asp .net if you have background of Client/Server side programming from any other language such as PHP. If you are new/beginner I won't recommend this book. I got stuck in many places while implementing the programs discussed in this book and I had to use my previous expertise to solve the problems. You may need to change here and there of the coding to work properly based on your systems configuration. I gave four star instead of 5 as in the beginning I thought I will be able to breeze through the book without any problem. Things work but after spending some time in changing codes. By the way I was using Visual Studio .Net to do the programs discuessed in this book. Good luck!!
Rating:
Summary: good starter book for ASP.Net
Review: This is the first book I have read on ASP. NET and I was very impressed. The language was simple and the style was easy and flowing throughout the book. The author does a competent job in explaining the difference between the different type of Web technologies out there and the advantages and disadvantages of each. There is a vast expanse of topics covered from basic to advanced as is suggested in the title of the book:
`Novice to Professional'.
There are plenty of examples in the book and also on the website that demonstrate the topics covered in the book. All topics are covered in a clear and concise manner without going into a lot of unnecessary detail especially for readers new to .NET like myself.
The only downside to this book is that, as it does not go into a lot of detail it would probably not appeal to someone who is already a .NET expert.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is making a transformation from Classic ASP to .NET but as I have mentioned earlier it is not recommended for those trying to get an in-depth knowledge of the subject. I know that it has helped me to understand the core functionalities of .NET
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - excellent author
Review: While reading reviews on another ASP.NET book I saw a recommendation for this book. I'm glad I did as this is an excellent book and Macdonald has become one of my favorite .NET authors. I've since purchased 2 other of his .NET books. He's an excellent author because as well as being highly technical he is also an EXCELLENT TEACHER and writer. He seems to intuitively know what you will have questions about and goes into explanations for them. He uses graphics and other learning aids (a lost art in many books it seems) and he explains things well. To me, he also teaches at the appropriate level. That is, he doesn't drop down and cover basics you should already know but he does cover things that experienced developers should have questions about. Whenever I am needing to learn about a different aspect of .NET now I look to see if Macdonald has published a book (the guy is incredibly prolific!) and I buy his book.
<< 1 >>
| 
