Jesse Liberty | Dan Hurwitz
1 too much filler
this book is loaded with unnecessary fluff.
e.g. on page 625: "the VB.NET declaration is identical except for the final semi-colon". gee thanks, but this book is supposed to be about asp.net, not the differences between C# and vb.net.
This book nicely describes the differences between a repeater, datalist and a datagrid.
There is also too much code, and not enough explanation of what's practical and why.
In general, too much filler; it seems to me that the code is formatted in such a way to take up the most about of space. as if it was important to the authors to make it over the 1000 pages mark (which they did, by 8).
I do not recommend this book for people who want more than just a cursory overview of asp.net.
2 Covers vast ground in both C# and VB...
I am a beginner at ASP.NET. I prefer VB for syntax.
I tried reading this text to get my feet wet in ASP.NET but found it was a little overwhelming. This book covers pretty much everything I need to know at this stage, and then a lot more. For that alone, it is a good book.
Also, I love how the book covers C# and VB. Though I prefer VB, it seems many others prefer C#. It's nice to see a book give fair due to both languages.
I think the code samples get pretty long and the code descriptions are too short for my tastes. But many will like the fact that the code samples are not useless - they can be applied in the real world.
I also think that for an O'Reilly book, it reads fairly comfortably. I was able to grasp most of it with reasonable effort. I've read other O'Reilly texts and find that they can be over my head. I was impressed by this one, though. Also, it covers the use of Visual Studio and standard text-editors, which is great.
Overall, I think this book is a good choice for the beginner, but if you're like me, you'll need something to bring you up to this book before reading it. I used ASP.NET for Dummies and neither felt pathetic reading it or that it was completely useless.
So basically:
- I got this book, became a bit overwhelmed
- Got ASP.NET for Dummies, read it
- Re-read this book and enjoyed it
I will keep this book because it is usable enough for a reference as well.
3 Microsoft MVP Reviews Programming ASP.NET
There is a lot of hype around the ability to write .NET oriented code in multiple languages. In reality, the need or desire for a developer to write in multiple languages in ASP.NET will be rare. Thus, negating the benefit of writing books that show tidbits of both languages when providing code examples. It clouds the overall tutorial with information that is often not relevant to what the reader is trying to digest. Learning how to implement one .NET language with ASP.NET is hard enough. Learning two is downright painful. That being said, there is quite a bit of good information contained in Programming ASP.NET even if you do have to weed out items you aren't interested in. Here are a few of my favorites:
Debugging: The authors do a solid job of teaching the reader how to utilize the IDE's tracing and debugging features. They walk you through the whole process step by step providing you with some great screen shots and IDE debug reference charts. This is not the best chapter I've ever seen on utilizing the IDE's debugging features but it is better than most books and certainly sufficient for most developers.
ADO.NET: Many ASP.NET books fall short with this crucial subject. Programming ASP.NET covers all the expected areas such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and Stored Procedures. Plus it focuses specifically on the DataSet object and everything it can do from dynamically constructing data sets to utilizing stored procedures to update data with or without transactions. There is a ton of sample code for syntax training in these chapters.
Managing State: One of the more challenging aspects of normal ASP is managing state. In ASP.NET, you are able to manage state without Session variables. There is a nice section on this topic that covers View State and the State Bag. I'd suggest reviewing this in chapter 6 before writing your first full web site in ASP.NET.
Object Caching: This is probably one of the most beneficial chapters in the book. I got a lot out of learning how to cache pages and actual objects such as datasets. The code examples and explainations thereof were just what I needed. I fully expect this to play a key role in future .NET sites I'll be working on.
Security: Number #1 topic of the day these days. Programming ASP.NET dedicates a pleasantly surprising amount of coverage to this topic. You'll learn various levels of windows authentication and how to make the most of them in .NET. You'll also pick up a few tips on configuring IIS and the web.config file.
All in all, Programming ASP.NET was a good read aside from the lack of coverage on XML and the language combination comments I mentioned above. If you enjoy O'Reilly books and the style they are written in, you'll definitely enjoy this one.
However, if you are a beginner with ASP.NET, don't let the combination of C# and VB.NET code throw you off track. If you stay focused on the aspects of ASP.NET, this book can help you out a great deal.
[...]
4 Not the best resource for ASP.NET
This was the first book on ASP.NET I purchased. I'm usually pleased with O'reilly books but this one misses the mark.
A better choice for beginners is Murach's ASP.NET by Anne Prince and Doug Lowe or if your interested in something thicker try Microsoft's Programming ASP.NET by Dino Esposito (an excellent resource).
Also a good resource for datagrids is ASP.NET Data Web Controls by Scott Mitchell.
5 Weak for an O'Reilly Book
I'm a profressional web developer, and I have probably a dozen O'Reilly books on my desk. This is the first one that has disappointed me.
1. Including both C# and VB code in a single edition makes the book much fatter than it needs to be, and quite inaccessible. It would have been better to print two editions of the book.
2. Some examples are too lengthy. I tend to find smaller examples more useful than large ones, because they're easier to get running and then adapt to my own purposes. I appreciate that the authors are trying to demonstrate "real world" applications like a Bug Database and a Stock Ticker, but unless you are going to spend hours digging through the code, these sorts of examples are not practical. It would have been better to include more small examples to illustrate key points.
3. No reference section! :(
So, I'm still hunting for a really great ASP.NET book...
6 Absolute crappiest book I ever bought
Talk about padding the pages! Hey O'Reilly - we don't need to re-print the whole dang piece of code to show a snippet. And have you guys ever heard of drag and drop on the page? Nah - couldn't do that either - let's just reprint the source code instead. It's more impressive that way - a thicker book *must* be better, we can price accordingly *and* it fills the "library".
Utter nonsense.
7 Get this for ASP.NET with C#
I was looking for a book that thoroughly taught ASP.NET and took the C# language seriously and not as an afterthought. This book is absolutely perfect. It explains the intrinsics of ASP.NET and its theoretical underpinnings. It also has very good practical information with regard to many of the decisions you will have to make in terms of the tools and different approaches you face when programming in ASP.NET. What I liked most of all was that it has every example in C# which most ASP.NET authors seem to shy away from for some bizarre reason. If you want to learn ASP.NET thoroughly with C# syntax I can recommend no other and I have read quite a few.
8 It doesn't get any better than Jesse Liberty
As a new programmer, and even newer to .NET and ASP.NET this book is a must have for anyone serious about learning ASP.NET. The book covers every aspect of using ASP.NET, and the examples can be used in real world situtations. You can also find Jesse Liberty featured on http://www.appdev.com courses. What are you waiting for, go get this book!!
9 Best ASP.NET book available
As with the first edition of this book, the second edition continues to be the best ASP.NET book available today. This edition has been updated to include information on the 1.1 version of the .NET framework as well as Visual Studio 2003.
Unlike many other ASP.NET books I have seen, you can actually pick this one up and begin writing ASP.NET applications quickly. The book begins with an introduction to the Visual Studio development environment, which is necessary knowledge to be able to effectively write and compile code. This introduction does a very good job quickly describing the most important features of the IDE. For a more thorough introduction to the Visual Studio .NET IDE, pick up a copy of O'Reilly's Mastering Visual Studio .NET.
This book then proceeds to discuss each of the ASP.NET server controls in detail. Examples are provided in both C# and VB.NET, with clear preference given to C#. Some of the more difficult concepts are clearly explained, with enough information provide to satisfy more advanced readers.
Personally, I found many of the highlights of this book to be toward the end, where an excellent section on data access can be found. This has often been a point of contention with me: most applications today have some amount of data access involved. Unfortunately, most .NET books have only a small (and largely inadequate) data access chapter. The data access section in this book is one of the best I have seen. Even if you know a lot about ASP.NET, you'll probably learn a thing or two from the data access section.
The authors also have written an excellent chapter on creating custom controls for applications. There is a very good discussion on creating user controls and custom controls (both of which can be used as re-usable components in web applications).
Like the previous edition, this book doesn't disappoint. This is a must have for ASP.NET developers and an excellent tutorial for individuals trying to get their hands around ASP.NET.
10 Gold Mine!
This book is a gold-mine - explaining well the .NET concepts. As an experienced ASP developer, it gave me good background to understand the differences between ASP and ASP.NET. The examples are structured to build on each other and are well thought-out. I had a question about one of the examples and posted it to Jesse Liberty's web site (url included in the book). He answered it right away! Great book!
11 Highly Recommend It
This is an excellent book. In fact, it's the best ASP.NET book I've seen yet. I did find myself skipping around in it a lot more than reading it cover to cover, but, all in all, it's a great book. I often refer back to it as a reference. Also, the code examples are in both VB.NET and C#.
12 Beginners Only
I am a big fan of O'Reilly titles, however this book is not one of the better ones. The code examples are lengthy and always (unnecessarily) provided in both C# and VB.NET. Some of the more interesting topics like security are glossed over. This is a thick book and I would expect it to include some discussion of Web architecture with .NET, performance issues, and when to use client side processing. The second edition has a fair number of misprints and typos. On the plus side, it gives thorough explanations of web controls and basic processing, and is a good introduction to ASP.NET.
13 Life Saver
I developed my first .NET project as a consultant the first day the .NET framework was released by Microsoft. I found myself scrambling for a book with helpful examples. A lot of the samples I found on-line and in the first Wrox books did not work. Programming ASP.NET was a real life saver! I still get called back from time-to-time for updates to the .NET site and for other .NET projects. Each time I keep going back to this book as a helpful reference. I disagree with the earlier reviewer, I found it easy to distinguish between the VB and C# examples. I thought it was great that I didn't have to have two separate books for each language. I think the authors have done a great job!
14 Irritatingly obtuse !!
If you know nothing about ASP.NET, it is certain that you will learn something. However, if you are interested in learning how to build a full blown application, you may find that this book fails to provide the detailed examples you are looking for.
To be sure the book starts out with comprehensive examples, but these are for the more simple constructs. Just when you find you are getting to the important subjects - security, forms authentication, configuration, etc. the authors suddenly become extremely vague or lazy. Examples of what I mean? The reader will begin to see much psedo-coding and terse explanations instead of actual examples for things such as posting a form to authenticate a username / password.
I conclude from this that the authors must not have experience building these kinds of full-blown applications and do not know how to fully discuss and educate on these subjects. Either that, or they just got lazy and failed to deliver the goods. Either is unforgivable if you are claiming to cover the materials in the table of contents.
If I could give this book 1.5 stars insted of 2 I would have.
Did it help me? Well, yes, I did learn a few things. Did it provide the information I was seeking when I purchased the book?
NO!! It fails to deliver just when I arrived at the subjects I wanted to learn more fully.
So, to net it out... If you are completely new to ASP.NET, this is an "OK" book to cut your teeth on. If you are looking to inform yourself on the more advanced topics of full-blown application development, this book is a waste of your money. Do not purchase it.
Now I'm off to search for a book written by folks that do know about forms authentication, configuration, security, etc.
15 Best Internet Programming Book Ever Written
This book is by far the most polished, thorough, and wide scoped internet programming book that I've read. It gives an expansive review of all the ASP.net components - their capabilities and events compared to html as well as classic asp. It shows the fundamental advantage of "code-behind"... seperation of presentation level html from c# or vb code. It teaches Visual Studio .net debugging, which I found to be very enlightening, as well as practical. It goes deep into web.config modifications and global.asax session state and application state access. Also, they explain xml and well-formed html standards, regular expressions (briefly), error handling (including custom error page redirection), tracing and trace.adx (ASP.net's event logging util), validation using built-in ASP.net controls, ADO.NET, and I could go on forever. If you're familiar with old ASP coding practices, jumping from TextPad to Explorer constantly to debug, this book will turn you on to much more effecient and speedy techniques using Studio.net. If you are someone who needs to know just about everything about web development using ASP.NET give this book a try.
I recommend this book.
16 Makes the Subject Very Approachable
I've been using this book since its first edition as the text of an ASP.NET class I teach for the last two years, after looking over many others. It covers most of the areas on the subject very well. However, I do provide my own supplemental material on a few missing, but common and easy to handle, topics for building more complete web apps, such as HttpCookie and SmtpMail. Still highly recommended!
17 Good book...
This book is extremely good for beginners. If you have already worked on ASP, you might find this a bit boring at some places. Something thats missing in the book is the explanation of how exactly the ASP.NET works with respect to CLR or the overall .NET framework. But there are some topics like data access using ADO.NET, ADO Data Updates, Data Binding are the best and very easy to understand with out much effort.
18 Well.....
I am not going to say this is the worst book I have ever read, because it was useful considering that I didn't know anything about .NET before starting on this book. However, there was just way too much space spent on the calendar control, and on setting up the database. More time and pages should have been spent on actually connnecting and using the data! Yes, stored procedures are essential to writing real apps..but I bought this book to learn ASP.NET...not how to write complex sql stored procedures. And if you are going to spend so much time writing the procedures, then at least build an app worth having them! Overall, this book wasn't bad, but it is very frustrating as a reference. It DOES cover the controls very well, but if you want a real world application example, you will be left in the dark. I am now reading Programming C# by the same author, and it is a great book for learning the language...which is what led me to believe this book was going to be good. This book is worth having on your shelf for the control coverage. (Especially the calendar!) For COMPLETE coverage of how to use ASP.Net, buy something else.
19 Excellent start to ASP.NET
I can't add much to what others have already written in terms of content. What I will say, though, is that Jesse and Dan have done another outstanding job with this book.
There is quit a bit of overlap with Jesse's Programming C#, but the good thing is that you get to see how it works with ASP.NET.
The one thing that I didn't like about this book is the fact that there is both C# and VB code quoted everywhere in the text. I found it a little distracting initially. As I got used to the idea, though, I ignored the VB and found that it was no longer as much of an issue.
I asked Dan about this and he pointed out that it is tough to get seperate C# and VB versions of this kind of book published and that this was the compromise that was reached. I'll deal with it. The content is worth its weight in gold anyway.
I have also had the opportunity of attending two successive user group meeting where Jesse presented the material in a six hour crash course. It was extremely fast-paced, but I'd worked through the book previously so that having it presented was more of a refresher than anything else.
The insight that Jesse and Dan have on the industry as a whole is clearly from years of experience and I can only say that these are two authors who should be mandatory reading on virtually any subject they choose to write on.
Definitely a "must-buy".
20 Programming ASP.NET (O'Reilly Windows)
This book is very helpful for beginners. There are lot of examples in both VB and C# and builds good understanding about ASP.NET , so I would rank as four stars.
21 Best of the best - The right place to learn ASP.NET
If you are an ASP programmer, or have never programmed the web before, this is absolutely the very best book to learn ASP.NET. The authors start at the very beginning and provide page after page of useful information. Every concept, control, approach and idea is illustrated with an example in both C# and VB.NET (which is great) and the authors provide the complete source code (and an errata) on their web site.
There are few books that make ASP.NET this clear, and there are few that cover as wide a range of topics. I just hope they write a book on Windows Forms soon.
I was really impressed by this book and I recommend it highly. The book is large, but you can pick and choose the topics that are of interest, and the writing is so good you move through the material very quickly.
22 Shows how it should be done
'Programming ASP.NET' should serve as a model for other computer-book authors. If only some of the committee-written Wrox books were this good! The writing is clear and the organization is consistent throughout; the examples are easily duplicated and promote further experimentation by the reader. As a programmer with some 15+ years experience, I can say that I'm always delighted to find a book that makes teaching myself so easy. Well, this book reads as if it were written by someone who knows how to teach. Some books leave the reader frustrated with a lot of loose ends, or complicate things that could be presented simply. This one doesn't. And as an added benefit, it contains absolutely no Microsoft hype.
23 Not worth the time
The book assumes you know everything. I have been coding ASP for almost 6 years and this book is totaly useless when trying to learn ASP .NET. I can't even find how to make a database call using the aspx.vb piece. He only uses the aspx part of ASP .NET. In addition he does not even go over some of the basics on recorsets. For example a standard way to detect you have a record set is if not rs.EOF and not rs.BOF then well in ASP .NET the EOF and BOF are gone and he does not even tell you how to figure out that you actually have a recordset from a stored procedure. The book is lacking in many areas including VB itself. About half way all the VB examples just vanish and everything is in C#. I highly recommend if you are a true ASP developer (most program in VBScript) then do not waste your time on this book. It is not even worthy of a referance because the table of contents doesn't really cover any of the basic stuff. As I said earlier the maker of this book assumes you know the world and rather than teach you he sounds like he is trying to tell you what you already know but the truth is you don't know it hehe!
24 Everything you want in a primer on ASP.NET
This book is just what I was looking for in a primer. It has excellent coverage of all the basic topics, but goes on to cover more advanced topics as well. In addition, the example programs are short, clear, well written and on point.
I've never seen such excellent coverage of all the controls and web forms. The introduction to ADO.NET is excellent, the coverage of User controls and custom controls amazing, and their chapters on deployment and performance are first rate. The book also provides an excellent introduction to web services.
No book can be all things to all people, but this is an excellent primer for ASP programmers and for new ASP.NET programmers who want to work in either C# or VB.NET. While showing all the examples in both language does make the book slightly longer, it is well worth it; you get to see how the two languages relate and it makes the book much more interesting.
The authors are very careful to make sure that every topic is covered thoroughly and well, but they go beyond that to provide extensive support on their web site.
This is a book I can recommend without reservaitons. If you want to learn ASP.NET, this is the book for you.
25 Look elsewhere - little content - poor examples
Unlike Jesse Liberty's Programming C# book, this book does not measure up.
It leaves one wondering if he has ever written a real Asp.Net application.
This book is also very bloated . Everything is shown in VB and C# AND the whole program listing (even IDE generated stuff) is often shown multiple times (is he lazy or just trying to increase page count?)
Most examples are very contrived and none of them teach real-world scalable techniques.
26 Excellent book
I found the book to be excellent, authors beside knowledge, know how to right a very well organized book, better than 3 already purchased so far, highlly recommended
27 Best book on ASP.NET
I have been asked to create a web application for my company, and I reviewed a number of books on ASP.NET (as well as ADO.NET). This is by far the best I've seen.
The coverage of the various controls is excellent, the examples are small and useful and really explain the material, and you can download the examples from the author's web site.
In addition, this book provides an excellent introduction to ADO.NET for ASP.NET, better than some dedicated books I looked at.
The book goes beyond the superficial, and really covers the issues you run into when writing an application. This is not a rehash of the existing documentation, but a guided tour through what it takes to create a working web application with ASP.NET.
I personally like C#, but it was interesting to see the code both in C# and in VB.NET. I feel like I learned VB.NET along the way, as a bonus, and I realize now how similar these languages really are. You can skip over the language you don't care about (all the examples are in both C# and in VB.NET) but it is fun to see how similar they are.
In any case, I highly recommend this book both for programmers with little ASP experience, and for more advanced programmers as well.
28 Certainly the best book on ASP available
Liberty writes well, but more important he covers the topoic in depth. This book is great. Every example is shown in both C# and VB.NET, and every example is on topic. The depth and breadth of coverage is amazing.
The first part of the book teaches the fundamentals of writing ASP.NET applications, but it also provides a comprehensive introduction to the controls available through the .NET framework. There is good coverage not only of the standard ASP.NET controls, but of such advanced topics as validation and the fancier controls as well.
The book goes on to show, in depth, how to get data out of a database and into your web application, and the general introduction to ADO.NET is alone worth the price of the book.
This is another great book in a series of top flight .NET books from O'Reilly and Jesse Liberty. Highly recommended.
29 ADO.NET part in this book is confusing.
I've read both this book and wrox's PROFESSIONAL VISUAL BASIC.NET. I found that wrox's book is much clearer than this book. This book just gives you some programming codes without clearly telling you why and no comparasion to each approches.
I'd say I don't like this book. It's so dry and hard to read. I prefer wrox book.
30 Not easy to read. Better go to wrox book.
Not easy to read. Better go to wrox book.
31 Exactly What I Needed
O'Reilly does it again. I've been programming ASP since Ver 2.0, and I was looking for one reference to bridge the gap between the new and the old. This book did just that. However, this is not a good book to get you started out with the .NET Framework. It doesn't go into detail about the CLR, FCL, etc. Also, like most computer books out these days, the text is a little bloated with programming examples. The authors give programming examples using both VB.NET and C#, which could be a plus or minus depending on the reader. Also, there's an entire chapter that covers many of the new ASP.NET Server side controls, with examples for each. After a few examples, I was ready to move on. All in all, a great book, highly recommended.
32 Good book.. Could be the only ASP.NET book u need
This is my first book for ASP.NET. I like it very much so far. The book flows easily as such. But some of the topics are covered in incosistent depth. For example, the authors went nuts about ASP Controls (the chapter#5 is about 150 pages long!! Out of which the Calendar control is more than 50 pages long!!!). Some topics are, on the other hand, have bare-bones coverage. The editor(s) should have fixed these kind of problems.
But overall, the authors have done pretty decent job. This can safely be your first (and may be only) ASP.NET book. For some areas here and there you might need to refer else where.
Watch out for the unavaoidable evil in computer books... errata. Looks like the authors used different code base to generate the screen shots :-) Make sure you check their website before pulling ur hair.
Despite its minor short-comings, its a very book to learn ASP.NET. It has enough detail to pull off a non-trivial project. Don't let the size intimidate you! It is because of code duplication in both C# and VB.NET.
33 Best Book Yet
I must say, this is the second book I have purchased by Jesse Liberty and he fails to disappoint once again.
This book is very straightforward with no filler. There are plenty of code examples and each one is explained in clear and concise language.
I would recommend this book for either c# programmers or vb.net programmers. Most of the examples (if not all, haven't finished the WHOLE book yet) are given in both c# and vb.net.
Kudos to both authors and O'Reilly editing for releasing a quality book.
34 What a great book!
I loved Liberty's C# tutorial, but this introduction to ASP.NET is even better.
This book teaches every aspect of building ASP.NET applications, with detailed analysis of the various controls and good depth of coverage on advanced topics such as data binding and interacting with SQL Server.
Yes, this book IS good for beginners (I didn't really know ASP before I read this book) but it is also good for intermediate programmers because it goes way beyond the basics.
The first part is introductory and thorough, but the second part (beginning about chapter 14) gets into the nitty gritty of creating custom controls, creating and using web services and then goes on to provide important infomration about security, performance and deployment.
I can't think of a better primer on ASP.NET and I recommend it highly.
35 Maybe not for pure VB.NET programmers
I bought this book mainly to learn ASP.NET and since I am an experienced ASP and VB programmer I thought it would be nice to go through once with the VB examples and a second time with the C# examples. Sadly tho the difference in the authors become very apparent around chapter 10 and 11. From here a lot of the examples are only given in C# and the VB.NET code just ignored. The first 9 chapters I thought was very well covered, I can only assume that chapters 10-12 was written by the other author. I am very dissapointed that this had occured, up until this point I really enjoyed reading it. Now I have to sadly by ANOTHER book, in the hopes of getting a clearer VB.NET with ASP.NET understanding. If C# is your game, then this book is very good. So far I just found one example that didn't work (a whole section of code seemed to have been excluded) but other than that good book. Only on chapter 12, so hopefully once I hit 13 the the VB.NET guy is back.
36 Best intro to ASP.NET - Excellent
This book is simply excellent. It starts with the core fundamentals, and builds your expertise from there. Every aspect of ASP.NET is covered in detail.
The authors begin with a simple HTML based "hello world" program and quickly build up the asp.net capabilities. They show integrated code and the (preferred) code-behind. The event model is explained in detail. Each of the major controls is shown and the validation controls are described in detail. The authors also show debugging techniques and proper coding idioms.
Every example is shown in both VB.NET and C#, which I found very helpful. This helped me see the similarities in the language and clarified areas that might otherwise be confusing.
The book includes a lengthy section on interacting with data, including a primer on ADO.NET and list-bound controls. The section on custom and user controls is excellent.
They spend 3 chapters on Web Services, and provide a comprehensive overview of this topic.
Finally, the book is rounded out with chapters on caching and performance, security and deployment and configuration.
The writing is clear and crisp, and despite the fact that there are two authors, it reads as if written by just one. The material is delieverd with clarity, and the authors provide unbelievable support on their web site, where you can obtain the source code and also ask questions directly of the authors!
All in all, I was very impressed by this excellent introduction to ASP.NET, and I recommend it highly.
37 Not the Best
I have one word for my experience with this book - "frustrating." I don't regret the money for the book. But I do regret the weeks of time I put in this book.
Yes, this book has an easy-to-follow coverage of the "theory" of ASP.Net, but maybe too easy. I wrote my first 2-star review of this book in October of 2002. Now I feel even stronger that this book is one of my worst buys in technical books. I think this book has 3 fatal flaws:
1, it doesn't give you a clear illustration of the .Net framework. ASP.Net uses object-oriented programming and compiled code, which is drastically different from classic ASP, and more like servlet/JSP. How does the .Net framework handle inheritance, namespace, and so on? What methods does one system class have? And what methods are inherited from the parent class? How are .aspx files, .cs files, the project, and the solution related to each other? Without a thorough coverage of the code-behind, resource files and their relationship, it's difficult to tell why things work or break. Unfortunately this book lacks this coverage. From this ASP.Net book, you are taught to be an auto-transmission car driver who doesn't know how to change motor oil. In comparison, a typical servlet/JSP book starts from servlet then moves on to JSP. A good one explains the nuts and bolts that make up your web.xml and other resources. The servlet/JSP approach teaches you to be a driver/mechanic combo so you are sure how your little car or app runs.
While other OOP books use UML to illustrate class inheritance and user interaction, this book doesn't have a single diagram to illustrate the .Net framework and ASP.Net. That's even worse than Alex Homer's classic ASP book of 1997. If you used classic ASP and Java/J2EE for several years, you've certainly seen better programming books than this ASP.Net book. Liberty's writing style is far behind and backwards.
2, this book doesn't work well with Visual Studio .Net. If you choose VS.Net, it's hard to even start with this book. I tried about ten of the examples from Chapter 4 through Chapter 11. Most of my test pages broke, even though I imported the code directly from the book's website. In order to make the examples work in Visual Studio .Net, you have to follow a specific order in setting up the files, or you have to make changes to the source code from the book. You assume all these steps and changes are covered in the book? Nope!
It's possible that Liberty wrote the script before the official release of VS.Net. Yeah, we know beta of VS.Net [was bad]. But then the value of this book is very much discounted. Visual Studio .Net has its own rules of the game - how projects are set up, how resources are called and what files are involved. This book doesn't give adequate coverage on this topic. For instance, how do you take several existing files, copy and replicate their business logic in Visual Studio .Net? Where to find documentation of a specific class from within Visual Studio .Net? If existing data sources don't work in ASP.Net, how to let Visual Studio .Net help you create new data sources? These tasks are easily doable, but don't expect this book to tell you how.
3, you don't see industry-strength samples in this book. Most of the sample code can only be classified as junior-level play code. Look at real world websites using ASP.Net, then look back at this book, you know the difference is like that between a scooter and an SUV. Just having an ADO.Net page to list customer names is far away from satisfying your customers. Coverage of ADO.Net in this book is less than modest. Without database programming, what real world job can you do with ASP.Net? And Liberty spent 140 pages just on server controls, including that Calendar control! Doesn't a technical writer need and have a focus for his book? Sample code in Chapter 11 of the book works, but is not clean. It won't pass the code review in my team, at least.
This book is fine, only if ...
you don't expect to understand the object-oriented side of ASP.Net,
or if you don't plan to use Visual Studio .Net,
or, if you don't want to write real-world applications using ASP.Net.
Otherwise, your valuable developer's time is on risk - high risk, that is.
38 Not your usual O'Reilly book
As an O'Reilly publication I was slightly disappointed with this book until I realized that most of the problem is probably due to the newness of the subject as opposed to quality of the authors and editors. The content is very good and covers quite a bit of programming ASP.Net applications. It gives solid coverage of a large number of topics. The biggest problem is the content is not much more than can be found in the ASP `quick start tutorials' on the Microsoft site. Ease of reading and the examples being explained in significantly greater detail than the tutorials are the books greatest advantage over the tutorials - aside from being able to take it anywhere.
The 900 page book would probably fit into a little more than 500 pages if it weren't for the constant code duplication throughout. In the first few chapters every example (including the HTML) is duplicated in both C# and VB.NET. In later chapters they do not duplicate the HTML but much of the code is still shown in both languages. This is nice to be able to illustrate the differences between the two languages but it gets quite repetitious after the first few dozen times. I found myself skipping over large sections of repeated code where the biggest difference was in the trailing semi-colons. In a couple of cases I skipped over more than 10 pages befroe finding the code explanations. Even the small code snippets being expalined were often duplicated.
Over all it is a solid book and is useful in its more detailed explanations and samples. Despite the claim that no prior experience is needed with ASP pages it would definitely be a plus. If you are new to ASP.Net and want a good introductory text then this would be a solid book for you but it by no means should be your only book. I gave it four stars because only 3 would have been equal to a 6 on a 10 point scale and that would have been too low, a solid 3 1/2 is more realistic.
39 It is an okay book...
Good book for most part, except the following: [I am using negative writing here, because, the positives are obvious and outweight significantly negatives. Therefore...]
1. Too heavy to hold and read. [My hands are still paining!]
2. Heavy because, the author wasted too many pages, by unnecessarily including both VB and C# code for each example. Bought the book thinking that most will be in C#, which it is, but vB should be a separate book. VB.NET won't find c# useful and vice versa.
3. Why was the author obsessed with Calendar control? God way too many pages/time spent on one simple thing, whereas others could have gotten more attention. Rename the book to: "Programming ASP.NET Calendar control plus some others".
4. Book does not cover advanced topics and book is rushed towards the finish.
Overall good book if you want to get started on ASP.NET, but if you are okay to start with middle level to advanced level, don't buy this one, may be there are books. I will be looking around.
40 Excellent Overview of ASP.NET
This book is a great overview of ASP.NET programming. The author shows examples in both C# and VB.NET (this, however, makes the book thicker than the content would warrant). I have found the book to be well-edited, and the layout is very good. I would definitely recommend this book over the rather patheric Intro to ASP.NET course MS-2063 offered by Microsoft. This will be an invaluable tool for me for at least 6-12 months while I become proficient in .NET Web programming.
41 go read "4guysfromrolla.com" and msdn instead
This book covers ASP.NET basics for people familiar with C# or VB.net, and the web in general. However there are a few bad things about it:
* Most examples are included in both C# and VB.net. The examples first appear as complete listings, then again as fragments, interleaved with explanations of what the various pieces do. This means that there is so much redundant information that it becomes tireing after a while. The fact that the author sometimes refines the examples over several iterations, reproducing the entire source again, makes the book even more bloated.
* It's all hobby code. Database connections are not closed after use, and this is such a trivial mistake that one wonders: "being an asp.net novice, how many other things will this book teach me to do wrong". SQL Injection is another thing. I thought one always should use parameters for commands, not construct them using a string builder.
The book has no value as a reference, but that would be needless anyway since msdn and the .net framework sdk documentation does a great job at that.
All in all there are some good things in this book, but it seems to be a "first generation" asp.net book, based on an experienced programmer tinkerting with new technology; not the sum of experiences of someone that has in-depth knowledge of asp.net. And I suspect this is a widespread flaw of asp.net books on the market.
42 Best Book for Learning ASP.NET On the Market
~This is what a primer should be: clear, well written, comprehensive, excellent. The coverage of the controls is first rate, the coverage of working with Data is unparalleled. This is a complete introduction to programming ASP.NET that goes beyond the fundamentals to teach advanced topics.
The examples are given in both C# and VB.NET which is helpful in many ways, and each example is short, to the point and well conceived. The descriptions and analysis are first-rate.
The book covers all
43 Unusual lucidity
This book jumps out of the pack for its clear, well-written, and often thorough introduction to ASP.NET. Unlike a great many authors in this field, Jesse Liberty writes well and clearly. He engages the reader one properly-explained step at a time in logical progression and liberally provides code examples, virtually all of them in *both* VB.NET and C#.NET code. This is the one of several ASP.NET books I - a long-time VB and ASP programmer - bought that turned on the lights for me. A chapter on securing ASP.NET applications is alone worth the book's price.
However the book fails where so many in this field do: it hurls itself into explanation of code and framework features and how to use them without providing even rudimentary instruction in planning and designing ASP.NET applications. The serious programmer won't find concentrated chapters on best practices in architecting for the .NET framework, suggestions for maximum efficiency in application development and its products, real-world tips and scenarios for implementation and installation, or other issues outside the mere writing of code. Although tidbits appear throughout the book while explaining code, even experienced programmers from other environments may be left thinking, "OK, but how do I start?" Well, with more reading. Applied .NET Framework Programming by Richter is one book which offers a few chapters on issues like these, and the MSDN site now has many articles, but I'm still hoping to find a great single guide to building great ASP.NET apps.
44 Good for beginners
I use this book to move from VB6 to ASP.NET for some new projects. I have some knowledge of past ASP, but little experience implementing it. For me, the book was a very good tutorial. Don't pretend, as other reviewers, to have all in one solution: it's a tutorial. If you already know ASP.NET I recommends you another one for reference and more advanced topics and specialized areas (security,web services, XML, etc.)
The double code presentation (C# and VB.NET) in almost 99% of the examples, increase the book and gave you the wrong impression of covers all bases deeply. But this approach, help you consider, in case you don't already, what language fits you best.
45 Excellent Introductory Book
I have several books describing the .net ASP platform. The examples in both VB and C# in this book are a great idea. What is lacking-and this applies to all the books on asp.net that I have read and used- is the methodology of applying dynamic data-driven control manipulations. Perhaps this is a result of an incomplete release of this framework by MS corp. Overall, the .NET framework does not impress me as a professional tool set; perhaps next version will fill in the gaps. But if you need to do the 80% no-brainer, trivial stuff then this book lays it out for you in a very clear manner.
46 For ASP.NET Beginners and intermediate programmers too!
A previous review panned this book for being for beginners; but that is what is great about it. This book teaches you everything you need to know to write ASP.NET applications.
That review complains that this book is weak on Delegates, Threading, Remoting, and Event handling but those topics are not ASP.NET; and Liberty covers them in detail in his Programming C# book (which is also excellent).
Where this book does shine is in covering ASP.NET, and all the aspects of writing a powerful internet application with ASP.NET. Excellent coverage, not only of controls and web forms, but also of data display and binding, interacting with databases, deployment and so forth.
This book is highly recommended.
47 For Beginners
The first thing that caught my attention is that this book is 944 pages which made me assume that it must have everything I need to know about ASP.NET. When I received this book I found out why : the code examples are presented in both VB .Net and C#, and you really have to look to distinguish where a C# code ends and VB .NET one begins.
When I put this book to the test ( when I started developing my first real web application) this book has helped me some times and failed me some more times. It helped me mainly in data bound controls but failed in security and exception handling. There is superficial coverage of topics such as : Delegates, Threading, Remoting, and Event handling and almost no mention of XML besides XML Web services
Chapter 19 which discuses Security and authentication is very primitive and lacks details needed to implement a real form-based authentication web site with database user management, and role based security.
This book covers almost everything there is in ASP .Net controls ( validation controls, data bound controls, and user controls), besides that the level of this book is Beginner and is quite frustrating for advanced topics.
I still can recommend this book for beginners with no knowledge on the subject, although I prefer ASP .Net unleashed since it is more comprehensive and has almost everything you can think of.
Unfortunately, Many less used (although useful) class libraries has no examples in .Net documentation and MSDN . This is an area where also many books lacks.
48 Leaves no stone unturned
I just love the way Jesse and Dan have written the book. I was shopping around for a good ASP.NET book for over 2 months and finally found the best. Coming from a Java background, it was not at all difficult to follow the C# code. I also bought "Programming C# 2nd Edition" after reading this one. Superb! It is a great combination.
49 No, you don't need Visual Studio.NET
That's categorically false! VS.NET is *not* necessary to work through this book. Jesse doesn't even start to get into Code-Behind until chapter 6, p199. This book admittedly has some code errors, but the author addresses these issues right away at his website... section. This is no doubt the best ASP.NET book on the market and I am thankful I trusted his fine reputation with other works (Like Programming C#). BUY THIS BOOK!
50 Do Get This Book
I wasn't going to review this book since so many others have said how good it is, but then I read a review by someone who said that he could not use the source code for the book and that it was not complete. The authors provide full source code in the book in both C# and VB.NET, and you can download the source from the author's site and cut and paste it into an ASP.NET application with no trouble at all.
Further, this book is not only complete and excellent, but the examples are particularly well written because they illustrate the point at hand simply and directly.
Perhaps the previous reviewer posted for the wrong book, because Programming ASP.NET is one of the best technical books I've ever read, and is certainly one of the very best books on this topic.
I strongly encourage you to buy this book.
51 Don't Bother With This One
While this book does offer some useful information, it falls far short of what developers need to understand to develop in ASP.NET. The code examples (which you can download from the publisher's web site)are simply text snippets of code, impossible to run on their own, and less than useful when taken out of context -- very disappointing.
There are better books out there that offer much more and better, with complete examples that run. I would not recommend this book.
52 GET THIS BOOK !!
Great book to learn ASP.NET programming -- lots of sample code, every on in both C# and VB.NET. I'd say, for somebody who is new to ASP.NET or anybody, like me, who is coming from ASP 3.0, this book is it!
Howerver, if you (like me) are interested in using C# for programming ASP.NET apps (instead of VB.NET) and you are new to C#, I recommend you learn C# first, then move ahead to learing ASP.NET.
53 Comprehensive and well written
This is another well written and fully comprehensive book by O'Reilly. I was very impressed by the excellent coverage and by the quality of the writing.
One key feature of this book is that it goes welll beyond the basics, and well beyond the Microsoft documentation to explain not only how you do things, but why you do them. Each concept is put in context and illustrated with working code.
The authors support this book well on the web, and full source code is available.
In short, I was very impressed by this excellent book.
54 A good starting point for ASP.NET
First of all, I would have given 5 stars if the last chapters were edited better for the examples, but I am glad that the book covers little of everything for us to get a taste of it. Anyways think of it as combination appetizer plate. Once I read and did the samples you just get anxious for more.
I would definetly recommend this book compared to the other books, like Wrox (who tend to put too many chefs in the same kitchen) making the book inconsistent. After this book you can then look for more in depth on the topics you are interested in. Mr. Libery prepared this dish in a well composed manner for us to tryout before ordering the main dish.
55 Great for beginner book
Programming ASP.net does a wonderful job of explaining ASP.net's event driven model and the rest of the core feature sets to ASP.net. It also targets both new developers using VB.Net and also C#. While this a great book for new ASP developers, its definitely not a book for those developers who need the nitty gritty details for the ASP.net classes. The book also doesn't touch enough on extending ASP.NET w/ HTTP Modules and leaves out a lot of things that seasoned developer would find useful such as explanations on the distributed debugging features of Visual Studio.NET IDE, handling file uploads, handling email related task, etc.
If you are a new ASP.NET developer, this is the book for you.
56 Outstanding,a new classic!!
The best ASP.NET book there is..simple, step by step, you read and learn, everything is clearly explained. A must!!
57 Brilliant!
I enjoyed Liberty's Programming C#, but this book is even better. He and Hurwitz write well (in fact, it is impossible to tell that there are two authos, they write as one). The book offers every example in both VB and C# which was very much appreciated.
I was not an ASP programmer, but this book takes you from the fundamentals through the more advanced material. The explanations are clear, the coverage of advanced topics like ADO.NET and custom controls is first class.
I highly recommend this book.
58 Good book, but needs to polish the rough edges
Of all the books on ASP.NET that I've read, this book is undoubtedly the best. But, it has some very rough edges that, when smoothed out in later editions will make it great. For those looking for a reference, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a strong tutorial that does an excellent job balancing depth for the experienced and simplicity for the beginner, this is the book.
Specific comments:
1. All examples in C# and VB. his is a plus or minus depending on your point of view. On one hand it's good because you have the option of choosing the language you want to use (or get exposure to both). On the other hand, it takes up a lot of space that could have been devoted further exploration of other topics.
2. Does not try to be a tutorial on how to program with VB or C#. I definitely like this approach. Other books on the market split their efforts between explaining ASP.NET and OOP/C#/VB. They end up being avarage at best for either topic.
3. The examples almost always do a good job demonstrating the topic under discussion. Other books on the market have serious problems in this area.
4. The examples are not consistent. I think that the examples were developed by different people. In one example, it is a step by step tutorial The next example, the examples are rough descriptions followed by source code (hard to follow). Yet another example will have a table layout of object property values. This is my biggest complaint. It would be nice if there was a consistent approach to the examples.
5. The ADO chapters are a bit confusing. A couple reasons for this:
5.a The examples here suffer from varying styles worst of all.
5.b ADO.NET is a big topic that probably deserves a book to itself (how about it O'Reilly? Programming ADO.NET) so the coverage is not enough, and it leaves you with lots of questions.
Overall, this book is the best I've found for a tutorial on ASP.NET. And, it has the potential to be another O'Reilly classic.
59 Far better than other titles
This book is very thorough for the most part. I am not so much interested in writing ASP.NET web pages, but rather writing controls for use in ASP.NET web forms. The chapter on this topic was the most complete I have read.
The biggest reason I recommend this book far and above any other ones on ASP.NET is that all of the examples are presented in both C# and VB. All other ASP.NET books I have seen are very VB centric, which is sad because VB is such a sad and pathetic language.
If you want to write ASP.NET web apps in C# and wish to quickly get up to speed, this is the book to do it with.
60 Good for beginers
Introduction
The arrival of ASP.NET has been a great boon to classic ASP programmers. To keep pace with the new technology has always been a challenge to all of us. One of the way to achieve this is to get to know about the new technology, ASP.NET, by reading one of ASP.NET book. "Programming ASP.NET" helps us to get to know all about ASP.NET. This book is written for programmers and web developers who want to build web applications using Microsoft's powerful new ASP.NET platform. All examples are explained in both VB.NET and C#.
Simple Statistics
Author(s): Jesse Liberty & Dan Hurwitz
Publisher: O'REILLY Pages: 944 Chapters: 20
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: ASP.NET and the .NET Framework
Chapter 2: Hello World
Chapter 3: Events
Chapter 4: Controls
Chapter 5: ASP Control Details
Chapter 6: Programming Web Forms
Chapter 7: Tracing, Debugging, and Error Handling
Chapter 8: Validation
Chapter 9: Data Binding
Chapter 10: List-Bound Controls, Part I
Chapter 11: Accessing Data with ADO.NET
Chapter 12: ADO Data Updates
Chapter 13: List-Bound Controls, Part II
Chapter 14: Custom and User Controls
Chapter 15: Web Services Overview
Chapter 16: Creating Web Services
Chapter 17: Consuming Web Services
Chapter 18: Caching and Performance
Chapter 19: Security
Chapter 20: Controlling, Configuring, and Deploying Applications
Appendix A: Relational Database Technology: A Crash Course
Appendix B: Bug Database Architecture
What can you learn from this book?
ASP.NET is mostly based on event driven. Chapter 3 gives you an insight to all events that are available in ASP.NET. This chapter discusses about how events are handled in ASP.NET. ASP.NET has a rich set of in built controls apart from the regular HTML controls. Chapter 4 explains about available HTML server controls and ASP Web server controls. Each web server control is explained in detail in chapter 6. Each control is well explained with examples. The controls which are mainly discussed include, Label control, Panel control, Calender control, Image control, Hyperlink control and Button controls.
Testing the output in Classic ASP was a very very difficult task. The only way was to put some Response.Write in between lines in which the bug may occur. But, in ASP.NET we have a wonderful mechanism called "TRACE" which enables us to write everything into the browser about the ASP.NET which is processed. Chapter 7 takes you to a tour on how tracing is achieved in ASP.NET and how you can debug an ASP.NET page from Visual Studio .NET.
How many lines of code we might have wrote using Javascript or VBScript to validate HTML controls to make sure that user have entered proper data. With the help of in-built Validation controls available in ASP.NET, now we can validate any HTML control with a simple validation control. Databinding is a new concept to all Classic ASP programmers. What is this Databinding? Chapter 9, has everything about Data Binding. Another frequent task that we use to do using classic ASP was to fetch data from a table. And we used to loop through the recordset mainly to create a HTML table to represent the data in rows and columns. Datagrid does the same thing in ASP.NET. Also datagrid has in-built features such as paging, sorting and editing. Chapter 10 and 13 contains all about Datagrid control, repeater control and datalist control.
The main aspect that I liked about this book was its dealing with Web services. Authors have alloted three chapters for web services which narrates about the web service, how we can create web services and how to consume a web service. Chapter 16 has a good example in detail which talks about creating a web service. And in Chapter 17, we can learn about how to consume a web service. With the help of Web services, we can pull data from different web server (web site) with ease.
Chapter 18, 19 and 20 discusses about three major features of ASP.NET. And you will get the best from these chapters. Caching has been best explained in chapter 18 with many examples. I really loved this chapter. Security is an unavoidable one in any web application. Chapter 19 explains about the three major aspects of security, such as Authentication, Authorization and Impersonation. What else do you need to protect your Web application. ASP.NET has a rich set of directives. One of the topic in chapter 20 is about the directives which helps us to specify settings that the compiler will use to process the ASP.NET files. You should read this chapter, if you want to know more about directives.
Support for this book and downloading examples:
The support for this book is awesome. And this book also contains about ADO.NET. We have around 125 pages of information about the new ADO.NET, which is explained in detail in chapters 11 and 12. Well, this book is worth for many reasons such as, its content, online support from authors and online examples.
My Rating:
I would rate this book an 8.5 out of 10.
61 Visual Studio.Net is necessary?
I read all the great reviews, then bought the book and found out you have to have a copy of Visual Studio.Net to use it. I wish they'd make that clear, but take my star rating with a grain of salt I only got to the second example.
62 Strongly Recommend
Ever since I read Jesse Liberty's "Programming C#", I've been eagerly awaiting the release of his "Programming ASP.NET". I received the book recently and just finished going through the 900 pages. Writing style is very lucid as expected (one of very few technical authors who succeed in this aspect. Another such author is Doug Walther of "XML for ASP.Net"). Though Programming ASP.NET begins with a simple "Hello World" example, by page 20, it has you creating a data table based on a datagrid connected to the Northwind database. This early demonstration of ASP.NET's power leads to an "aha" moment and keeps you going. It is refreshing to have the code work as promised. Unlike other ASP.NET books which address both VB and C# communities but show a marked preference for one or the other language, virtually every example in this book is given in both languages. I read only the C# examples, and reckon about 1/4th of the 900 pages catered to code in the "other" language. There are several screenshots of how to carry out various tasks in ASP.NET that are very useful for beginners. Similarly, screenshots of results from example programs are also very helpful. This book is "self-contained" for any concepts it discusses. You don't need to run to another book to seek clarifications. For me, this is the one book that brought together every aspect of ASP.NET, from hands-on "how to handle the development tool and set up files and directories" tasks, to conceptual issues. And the beauty is the whole discussion doesn't seem disjointed given its scope. I guess this is the advantage of having only one/two authors. The one minor criticism (may be just my personal preference) is, in the chapters on Accessing Data with ADO.NET, I wish there was (i) a short discussion of further abstraction between UI and a database made possible by using XML, and (ii) creating strongly typed datasets from XML schemas (using the xsd.exe tool for example) but likely it is outside the scope of the book to discuss this (in fact creating XML schemas and reading XML data files are addressed in later chapters through examples, so (i) is taken care of. And (ii) is too specific to warrant being a critical point). I strongly recommend this book as an essential reference to ASP.NET.
63 ASP.NET got me started
ASP.NET is a daunting subject in all its complexity. This clear and straightforward text helped me to organize this complex subject and get started as a .NET developer. There are many step by step examples to work through. Everything is presented in logical order as the structure is built.
64 An excellent tutorial
An execellent tutorial in ASP.net for both C# and VB.net programmers. Well written, complete, and exceeds expectations.
