Beginning ASP.Net 1.0 with C#

I have read almost all the chapters of this book. I have been programming with intermediate ASP for past 5 years. The reason I picked up the book was for the easy transition from ASP to ASP.Net and this book help me do that. The book explains ASP.Net 1.0 at the novice level. For serious developers this book can serve as an introductory book for ASP.Net. I have now moved on to Professional ASP.Net book by wrox and many times I have to go back to this book to look into introductory details of the new features of ASP.Net.

This is a great book for those new to creating web applications. It seems to me that the people that gave it a low rating are the ones that were experienced web developers. This book was not intended for them. On the back cover of the book, it clearly explains that it is for beginners who have no prior experience with ASP, VB, XML, OOP, or the .NET Framework.This book fit my experience level very well. I had only developed one small web application in classic ASP prior to purchasing this book and I did that over a year ago. I have weak HTML skills and very little experience writing web pages period. However, I have done quite a lot of development in Access using VBA so I am not completely new to programming or databases. In fact, I would say my skills in these areas are at least average if not above.After reading and working through the exercices in this book, I was able to develop a web-based time and billing application with a Jet (Access) database back-end. I was able to do all of the things that I imagined doing when I conceived this project and then some. It works and looks great! Of course, in addition to the book, I also used a lot of great online resources. But the knowledge and skills I gained from the book provided me with a solid foundation that I feel confident I can build upon.The examples in the book all worked for me with very few exceptions. I found very few errors, which is important especially in a beginner's book. In addition, I love how this book is true to its title and sticks to VB.NET. My previous experience with VBA gives me a bias in this direction which was satisfied completely.My only criticism of the book is that the examples are a little simplistic and unreal even for a beginner's book. I believe the authors could have been a little more creative and come up with some real-world scenarios that still would have been appropriate for this level. However, this is only a minor detractor and does not diminish the overall effectiveness of the book.If you are a beginner, buy this book. It is a great deal especially considering the price. I would buy it again if I were starting over. I don't think you'll be disappointed if you use the book appropriately and are as determined to learn ASP.NET as I am. Hope this helps!

The book is for complete beginners who have no previous experience with ASP. Some experience with HTML is helpful but not required. This book will teach you everything you need to know in order to create dynamic ASP.NET web sites.The first part of the book will familiarize you with the basic functionality of HTML, XML, ASP.NET, the .NET Framework, and Visual Basic .NET. You will learn how each of these technologies can be used together to create flexible web sites.The second part of the book introduces the concepts of object-oriented programming. All concepts are explained in detail with the help of many real world programming examples.After presenting the groundwork, the book then progresses to discussing the technologies and techniques that ASP.NET can draw upon to increase its functionality. These include ADO.NET for data source access, XML Web Services for inter-website communication, and Server Controls for facilitating code maintenance and reuse.The final part of the book presents ways in which you can optimize your ASP.NET sites to increase their speed, security and robustness. It also offers some detailed advice on code debugging.This book is highly recommended to beginners who want to learn how to start building web applications using ASP.NET.

I really like this book for two reasons. First, the authors do not make frequent references to VB6 and "classic" ASP. (They tell it like it is, not how it is different from what it was.) Second, in my experience so far, the code works! I suggest using this book in conjection with Microsoft Web Matrix which is a free download on the Web. There is also a short Wrox book on Web Matrix available as a free download on the Microsoft web site. The thing I like about Web Matrix is that it has its own server built into it. My machine has "XP Home" as the operating system. XP Home will not support the IIS web server software. But with Web Matrix you an write your applications and run them all on one machine, even without IIS or personal web server running on your machine. This book does not include a CD. The code is available on the Wrox website. I think if you see the code you will want the book. Now, if they can just get everyone to show up for the picture!

I am one of the authors of Beginning ASP.NET 1.0 with Visual Basic .NET. The book provides a solid introductory material to the beginner and helps those that know some of the basics to fill in the gaps. It was important for us to convey what ASP.NET is and why ASP.NET is important, how it's different from classic ASP and then delve into the details at a beginner's level. I think we've done that.Throughout each chapter, we include step-by-step examples to serve as foundations for building more elaborate code, as well as accompanying explanations to help readers grasp the concepts. We believe you'll get up to speed quickly!Let us know what you think about the book. We look forward to reading your reviews.