Rating: 
Summary: A good way to learn a critical technology
Review: Although HTML is the language of the world wide web, the real action is carried out by code that resides on the server. The life and death operations of a business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) e-business are the web pages created on the server by programs that accept data from the client and interact with server-side databases. One of the most widely used technologies is the Active Server Pages (ASP) technology created by Microsoft. Naturally, given its paternal origins, the scripting language used throughout is VBScript, the pared down version of Visual Basic.
This is one of those books where the promises made by the title are kept. The topics are all presented by examples of working code, which in most cases is understandable and effectively carries out the operations to be demonstrated. The initial two chapters are introductions to the ASP model and the VBScript programming language. By necessity brief and somewhat incomplete, the treatment of the ASP model is adequate although the reader with no experience in VBScript will probably have to consult other resources.
The middle chapters are used to present the basics of how ASP files run on the server and how communication with the client pages is accomplished. This is as good an introduction of this critical matter as I have seen. Topics covered include the global.asa file, the ActiveX Data Object (ADO), cookies, SQL connection and recordset objects; ad rotators and counters; and how to use installable components.
The later chapters are devoted to the creation of a more elaborate site designed to implement an online educational institution. This involves the creation and updating of address books, a login page with security that prevents unauthorized access and sending e-mail messages among other things. Interacting with databases using SQL commands forms an integral part of the site. While not a complete model for all things one could or would do on an e-commerce site, it is complete enough so that you can learn what is necessary to understand the structure of such sites.
ASP is not the only technology used to dynamically create web pages, the effectiveness of which makes or breaks any e-business site. However, it is currently the most popular and should be learned by anyone with a serious interest in commerce on the web. This book is a valuable and effective tool in learning those critical lessons.
Rating: 
Summary: good book with examples
Review: author try to explain the material with examples.that is what reader wants.good book for beginers.worth for its price.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good book for Beginers
Review: Being a beginner with ASP I bought this book as a tutorial to learn ASP. I have access to ASP professional Developers so I was able to ask a lot of questions in learning ASP. The code and explainations that are in the book are not clear and are hard to understand. I had to ask many questions. The code seemed to be hard to follow. The Developers that I have access to felt that the Author used too many 'functions' when they were not needed (this made the code hard to follow.) I am going to have to buy another book to learn from. This book may be good for refrence, but not learning from.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good book for Beginers
Review: Being a beginner with ASP I bought this book as a tutorial to learn ASP. I have access to ASP professional Developers so I was able to ask a lot of questions in learning ASP. The code and explainations that are in the book are not clear and are hard to understand. I had to ask many questions. The code seemed to be hard to follow. The Developers that I have access to felt that the Author used too many 'functions' when they were not needed (this made the code hard to follow.) I am going to have to buy another book to learn from. This book may be good for refrence, but not learning from.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: Excelent book for beginner to learn ASP. A lot of grahpics and figures in it help you to grasp the structure of ASP code.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to understand book!
Review: Excelent book for beginner to learn ASP. A lot of grahpics and figures in it help you to grasp the structure of ASP code.
Rating:
Summary: Good learning book once you have the begining skills
Review: Good book, good samples and good programming techniques, The author is very clear and the concept is explained very nicely, he just fails short in the implementation of the component in the ASP pages, he explained very good but the componet was already prepare for that tutorial, I would like the author develop the component throught the tutorial and then implemented, at last that is the way it is!!! , as a web developer I am interested to in the creation of the COM, but I gues that is a diferent subject from the point of view of the author. A very understandable book.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I am very pleased with this purchase. Although I have passed the InterDev exam, I never really understood a lot of it until I read Reselman's book. He really has a knack of explaining complex concepts. The book starts off quite basic, but by the end you have built a quite useful interactive web site. All the source code is on-line and so far it all seems to work fine. At a manageable 575 pages, it only half the size of some of the big ASP tomes, but then it is only about half the price.
Rating: 
Summary: ASP programming is part of the future of modern computing.
Review: I wrote ASP 3.0 by Example with one goal in mind-to provide an easy, understandable way for novice Web programmers to learn and use Active Server Page technology in a real world, meaningful manner.The book is divided into four parts. Part One, The Fundamentals of Distributed Computing Using ASP provides the background against which to understand ASP technology. Part Two, ASP Programming introduces the reader to the fundamental concepts and skills necessary to create dynamic web pages using ASP. These topics include a quick course on VBScript, programming for the server side and an introduction to the basic concepts of Object Oriented Programming. Part Three, Working with ASP on the Server teaches the reader how to work with ASP in a three-tier distributed environment. Part Four, Client/Server Applications Using ASP contain the chapters that show the reader how to create a variety of ASP applications in a hands on manner. The book covers the new features of Active Server Pages 3.0. Of particular interest is the use of the <CLASS> tag. This new feature allows programmers to create objects using nothing more than VBScript without having to compile the source code. Also, the books covers the use of the Script Encoder and the ActiveX Components that ship with Internet Information Server 5.0. The teaching style of the book is iterative. I continually reintroduce concepts and topics throughout the book, adding new knowledge at each discussion point. I call this approach to teaching the Baseball Approach. When you teach someone how to play baseball, you don't say that first we will master catching; then after you have mastered catching, we will teach you how to do throwing. After you master throwing, you will learn running and after running you will learn hitting. If this were the approach that we took to teaching baseball, nobody would get to play the game! Rather we play the game (in this case Web development using ASP) by revisiting and enhancing the various skills needed to be a competent ASP programmer within the context of real world programming. For example, I introduce the concept and use of the ASP Response object in Chapter Two. Later in Chapter 6 I give a detailed explanation of the Response object. Finally in various s in Part Four of the book, I show the reader how to use the Response object in real world situations. I am very interested in the role that modern distributed computing can play in the primary and secondary educational settings. The real world applications that I created for this book pertain to two fictitious schools, the Aristotle Middle School and the Socrates Alternative School. These applications were inspired by work I have been doing with a school here in Des Moines, Iowa. Within the scope of the Aristotle Middle School I teach readers how to do authentication, how to create a Personal Address Book and a Web Page Organizer that can be shared among faculty members-all using an ODBC datasource and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). The applications associated with the Socrates Alternative School are an Attendance Taker, an Email Client and an enhancement to the Attendance Taker that sends a student's attendance status to student's parents. I have created special ActiveX components for these applications, which the reader learns how to use with Active Server Page technology. The book makes liberal use of illustrations. Each concept that I teach has an associated figure in close proximity to the place in text in which the topic is discussed. I know from the various usability studies in which I participated while working in Gateway's Human Factors department that readers pay close attention to text when an illustration is inserted in line. Thus, not only do the book's illustration and figures clarify the concept and topic at hand, they are designed to be attention getting. Some figures are humorous. Some are thought provoking. Some are sentimental. The code in the book is professionally documented in order to insure the greatest clarity to the reader. The reader can download digital versions of the code from the Que Web Site. If the reader's computer has Personal Web Server or Internet Information Server installed, this code can be configured to create fully functional Web sites that demonstrate the Active Server Page technology discussed in the book. Active Server Pages 3.0 by Example has been a long time in the making. Everyone involved in making this book wanted to produce a book that teaches ASP technology as well as good programming practices. The publishing staff and I are confident that our goals have been met and our readers will be well served.
Rating:
Summary: 'By Example'
Review: In terms of adding to the reviews so far, I would say that Reselman does a good job of introducing real-life programming issues in context. He walks you through those 'gotchas' that you will encounter. No surprise that the book has no javascript examples to speak of, focusing on vbscript. That's good at the intro level -- you've got enough to learn about without having javascript syntax problems all the time. I agree that it's a good reference, but because the examples are concrete (one is called 'using ASP to add a record to an ODBC datasource'). If you use this stuff much, you'll want to use functions a lot -- hopefully you might be able to reuse some code -- so I wouldn't put too much credence in the low review). In terms of prerequisites, I would think it useful to have some general SQL knowledge ("sql for dummies" is a great add-on -- you'll be using SQL for all data access, so getting it down is key), and some basic HTML as well. Other than that, I found it very straight-forward. Cheers!
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