Rating: 
Summary: Some Good examples, but rather superficial on the ASP Side
Review: I'm a mid level VB developer looking to gain some insight on ASP. Overall the book was well organized covering an aspect of ASP in a different chapter. The best part of the book were the examples and exercises at the end of the chapter. Unfortunately, this was the only place where the authors summarizied the ideas in the chapter. It would have been nice if they had summarized the information within the chapter and highlighted key ideas/points. They also glossed over basic HTML syntax like TR,TD, Input, Command, parameter, recordsets and the parameters these commands use. A brief chapter summarizing this syntax would have been nice instead of assuming you know it already. What I found particularly irratiting was I had to reread sentences 2 to 3 times to determine what the authors were driving at. Subject - verb conjugation seems to be foreign to these writers although their sentences didn't contain many run-ons. Hey, I'm not an english professor! -->Not a bad book, but there are probably better books out there for the "real" beginner. <--
Rating: 
Summary: Not very useful
Review: I'm going to the bookstore right now to return it. I needed to learn (from scratch) about ASP and enough VBScript to get a simple form running. I slogged through 5-1/2 'hours' (chapters) and realized the whole book was going to skim over the main points. The chapter on gathering data from the user should have helped me; it gave a couple simple examples, but not enough information to customize to what I need. I took Active Server Pages for Dummies out from the library and, though I've never wanted to read a Dummies book, find it a lot more systematic in its approach and a much easier read.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth it for its price, but prepare to work
Review: If you buy this book, then be prepared to work. If you're new to the whole programming field, or maybe just web programming, don't think the knowledge will be served to you on a silver platter. People's expectations about this book are too high. The introduction to VBScript (which ASP supports) is well put together. It's not excellent, but it's good. As the book progresses, it covers all the essentials of ASP: setting up PWS, IIS, setting up SQL server or Access to work correctly with ASP, databases, cookies, files, and all the essential ASP objects. The examples were also useful, e.g. sending mail through the SMTP server, creating cookies, working with files... these are all good examples that can be modified and copy-and-pasted on any of your creations. It even contains tips on how to create a shopping cart and implementing XML. Now, this book is not intended as a bible. As with any method for learning, you're going to have to access external resources: the web, people, etc. This will make the learning experience more enjoyable. The reasons why I didn't give it five stars was because, the person who knows some programming has an EXTREME advantage over the one who doesn't. But then again, if you're not experienced, it just takes time. Another thing I didn't like was the way the examples were presented. It looked confusing and this confusion can lead to a lack of motivation. The last thing I found strange was the transition between chapters. Sometimes it seemed that there was no transition. Overall, not a bad book. For it's price however, it's an excellent book. If you're new to programming, it will take hard work to grasp the language. If you're experienced, and also have worked with a web language such as JSP, PHP, or maybe even some Coldfusion, then this book will certainly be easy to follow.
Rating: 
Summary: I finally gave up on this book.
Review: If you do not know VBScrip, forget about this book or you will get yourself in trouble. I had to ask for help from the programer in my company everytime I turn to next page. Gee... I gave up.
Rating:
Summary: Not that impressed
Review: If you have the patience I think this book could be good. In my opinion it fails to deliver because it strays from the format that is the reason I usually buy their books. This book spends WAY too much time explaining code and way too little giving you examples of how to do things within ASP and creating commom web pages and functionality. If you have alot of patience buy this book, but if you're looking for one full of step-by-step tutorials then I'd look elsewhere. Also, if you have the most recent version of IIS it's outdated.
Rating:
Summary: It gives brief start for beginers.
Review: In fact this book made me my very first win ever in this world and since then it has been hard to even fall to more better players than i am. The writer is just let me say a MAGICIAN in even his writings.
Rating: 
Summary: Very helpful and full of examples...
Review: In the past, I have not been that impressed with books published by SAMS; however, this is an exception. I almost canceled my order because they missed the initial publication date, but I am so glad I didn't. I have quite a bit of experience with HTML and DHTML, but have avoided ASP technology. While this book is rated for beginners, it covers everything I needed and a whole lot more... stuff like XML, configuring IIS, security blah blah blah... it exceeded my expectations by a lot. I plan to use it as reference material for ASP, IIS and security features. If you are a beginner, or a little more advanced, and want to know everything about ASP++, but don't want to read thousands of pages... get this book!
Rating:
Summary: Straight-to-the-point beginner's guide to ASP
Review: Simply a great book to learn ASP, if you already know HTML and VBScript well. Almost every code example is useful in real-world programming, and there is no wasteful language at all (some typos, though :). Easy to follow and code analysis is clear and to the point. I wish the other "Teach Yourself" books were nearly as good as this one...
Rating:
Summary: Solid ASP Training for Programmers
Review: The authors note that the book is for web developers and programmers but suggest that anyone with HTML, SQL, and VBScript experience will benefit. I learned from this book but it was more of a struggle than I had hoped because I am not a programmer. The treatment of HTML, VBScript, and SQL was clear enough to follow without a substantial background. I thought too much space was devoted to simple IIS features. But the authors talk about declaring variables, looping, functions, dictionaries, recordsets, etc. with little or no explanation. I read the SAMS book on Beginning Programming a few years ago and that was not enough to carry me here. For me the book moved too fast across programming concepts and was a little slow across issues of server management. I suppose that has to do with background but I believe the book could have been improved by explaining more fully the basic programming concepts involved. The book is a great education if you are willing to work with the examples. I failed to get file includes to work in my development environment despite following examples precisely but I was able to make other things work pretty well. Because I tended to bring the examples into existing environments I ran into a few problems with compatibility issues. For example, you can't declare <% @LANGUAGE = VBScript %> in a VBScript section on the same page as a block of JavaScript. When I looked carefully I saw that the authors had warned about that but I needed to learn the hard way. I really like the 24-hour format for this subject and the authors do a good job of explaining what they do cover. The examples were complete, working ASP code blocks followed by detailed analyses that helped me understand how things worked. I found myself marking sections to come back later when I am on particular projects to steal some of their code and modify it to my purposes. I have already taken and modified many blocks of code from ASP sites on the Internet but the explanations in this book are better than any I have seen on the Internet. If you are a programmer this is a great place to start. If you are not a programmer, be prepared to dig in.
Rating:
Summary: Too complicated
Review: The examples in this book are way too complicated for a beginner. There are much less complex ways of doing the things they do in this book. I had a very difficult time understanding their code and modifying it for my own use.
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