Wrox's ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit [With CDROM]

This book covers an amazing amount of ground in a short space (about 300 pages). For example, when they begin discussing data access, they take the time to explain some of the basics of good database design (such as applying normalization rules). They then show the creation of the database step-by-step with explanations. This is the general approach--a little bit of theory followed by some hands on examples as they take you through the process of building a simple ecommerce site. The examples are clear and illustrate the points they are trying to make with just enough screen shots to give you a familiarity with the tools but not so many that there's no space left for explanation. It is usefully indexed which makes topics easy to find. I have since bought many more advanced books of 400+ pages but I still find myself picking up this book for a quick refresher or to lookup a practical detail. A quick read covering a broad range of topics and remarkably thorough for an introductory book.

ASP.NET has created a drag-and-drop environment to enable the non-programmer to design web pages of surprising complexity without having to learn very much programming at all. While this approach will probably not last forever as your site gets more complex, it is a fair way to get started. At least you can get on line quickly. ASP used to stand for Active Server Pages (I'm not so sure that now it's just the three letters) which means that a base page is designed and then data for the page is brought out of a database. This means that there are two aspects of doing a web site: the basic design of the page from an artistic sense, and the design of the underlying data structure that comes from the database. This book is an excellect tutorial for the beginner. It covers both the design of the page and the underlying database. It further uses uses software that is free from Microsoft. The software is included on a CD that is supplied with the book. But you may want to check the Microsoft web site to see if a later version is available.

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition is a free IDE provided by Microsoft for beginners interested in learning Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 web development. This book, Wrox's ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit is an excellent resource for this software and provides a firm foundation for a jump start. Both David Sussman and Alex Homer are authors known for their work for beginners. They've kept the tutorial spirit going in this book and provided some excellent walk through and build-from-scratch examples. Beside ASP.NET 2.0 and VWD, this book also discusses and elaborate on general application design fundamentals, for instance database design, normalization etc, and hence ideal for candidates with not much formal knowledge of subject but want to be exposed to the tools of the trade. If interested, you can read my detailed review of this book in the ASP.NET pro magazine.