Professional ASP.Net 1.1

Given some initial hurdles, I fervently believe that Alex Homer's (plus 5 other authors) "Professional ASP.NET 1.1" is the most strategic book going, to really learn to program in ASP.NET. Or, from my life, it was the best thing I found after 3 years and more than $1000 worth of .NET-programming books. In true fairness, I believe the up-front hurdles are NOT the authors' fault. Rather, they come from the massiveness, and the version-one nature, of .NET. Among my .NET-student peers, I have heard a strong consensus that NO .NET training class (one example, even from a world-class university), or book prepares you to "really program". So, before attacking Alex's book, you must "make your peace" that some work is required. For example, I recommend that you struggle to pass 70-315 certification. After 2-3 tries, or so, I think you'll start to see the "worth" of Alex's book; far better than many alleged test-prep books. Finally, I recommend that you also develop the skills to convert Alex's examples to Visual Studio. While the "worth" is already there in the text-only aspx-page examples, I found the graphical nature of the Studio to be delightfully soothing to my "student" mind. For hours at a time, despite my habitual irritation with IDE marketing, even I was impressed with my own programming "power".

If you are really serious about getting ASP .NET knowledge and you are in real development environment where you need in depth knowledge of ASP .NET paradigm and controls, then this is the book for you. What I can't find at other places, this books describes it beautifully and clearly. I am very happy to get this book and I really enjoy reading it. I highly recommend this book for all types of developers, beginner, intermediate or advanced.

This is one of those great all-in-one tome books. Some of which are great, like this one. While others are little more than doorstops. The text is well written, though, like most Wrox books it relies heavily on code to do most of the exposition. Almost every topic you can think of is covered. Basic topics like controls, page design and security. Then onto more advanced topics like XML and mobile development. That's how you get to the tome size. But the coverage is consistently well written. So if you like your books in the all-in-one flavor, this is a good book for ASP.NET 1.1.

I found this book to be a good suppliment to Microsoft Traning material for passing the Web exam. A little thin in some areas and a few errors but overall not too bad.