Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5 Step by Step [With CDROM]

Being a Java and PHP developer with nearly ten years experience, and having read two other books about the C# language itself, I have chosen this book as an introduction to ASP.NET. Surely it is not the all-in-one perfect book for any programmers, moreover it must be very basic for an advanced ASP.NET developer, but for me it seems to be a perfect choice. It gives a fast overview of the philosophy and the most important aspects of ASP.NET, and therefore it is an ideal book for any experienced programmers who switch from any other technologies to .NET, and want to get a rough (and very fast) overview of this huge area.

It's a good fast read. Introduce the main selling points of .NET without the boring talk. Code sample and walk through of Visual Studio is an effective way of teaching most engineers with some experiences. I would agree that it may be a difficult read for the very beginners. Anyone with a couple of years experience in web development should feel fine with it.

This was a very good introduction to ASP.NET 3.5, but is not in-depth enough for the MCTS exam. From what I hear, Programming ASP.NET 3.5 (also from Microsoft Press) is more thorough.

Based upon the title, 'Step by Step,' you might think that Shepherd's book will actually cover ASP.NET 3.5 in detail, piece by piece. While it's true that he does this, he does it to very little detail. He also makes numerous assumptions throughout the text, which may have you scratching your head more than you usually would, picking up a new language. As a general overview, this book excels, but search elsewhere, for example, in Spaanjaars' Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB (Programmer to Programmer), for specifics on how to actually build a site. Overall, I've given this book 4 stars, of 5, since the information is valuable, as an overview. My background: I've been working on the Web for approximately a decade, professionally for half of that. I've got background in PHP and ColdFusion, with enough knowledge to read and tweak classic ASP (however, I think classic ASP is ugly).

I've just finished the end of the book and I will say it's not too bad. A little background about me before my full review, I'm a web developer with a design background, so I've done a lot of front-end design work for clients but I've also worked a bit of the back end with PHP, and Classic ASP. .NET was new to me and never worked with my preferred IDE, (ahem Dreamweaver) past .net 2.0, recently more and more clients are asking for ASP.net / Sharepoint work from me so I've decided to study up on ASP.net. Strait to the point, the book isn't dry and it does what it says, it walks you thru chapter by chapter explaining every "technical" bit of data regarding ASP.net and "occasionally" telling you something interesting about one of the tools for real world use. The pros for buying this book is that you get a clear understanding of ASP.net, the history and where it's going, as well as some simple tricks using VS 2008, LINQ, and ASP.net controls and forms, it also has sample code on the disc, and a PDF of the book on the CD for on-screen reference. My only problem with this book, (like so many other developer books) is that they really don't give real-world scenarios for building a e-commerce site, or a blog, or a contact form for that matter. It's a better starter book than a "for Dummies" or "..in 24 years" but it does the job to get you started using ASP.net.