ASP.NET by Example

ASP developers need to understand how ASP.NET can help them solve business problems better than any prior product. ASP.NET by Example is designed to provide a `crash course` on ASP.NET and quickly help the reader start using this new technology. As part of the By Example series, this book approaches ASP.NET in an easy-to-use tutorial way, giving the reader a much faster and more interactive learning experience than the traditional reference book. By building the sample applications taught in the book, readers will learn how to create custom ASP.NET controls, how to use ADO+ objects in ASP, and how to deploy and manage applications. ASP.NET by Example also provides tools and information needed to migrate old ASP files to the new platform, saving developers significant time and money. As an added feature Steven A. Smith has included multiple case studies on how ASP.NET is used in e-commerce applications.

User review
For beginners.
Steven A. Smith, ASP.NET by Example (Que, 2002)

It's been five years since the release of ASP.NET by Example, so if you're already well-versed in ASP.NET, this probably isn't the book for you. I, on the other hand, know nothing about ASP.NET, and picked it up as an introductory tome. (If you do so, you should have at least a decent background in either VB.NET or C#, the two languages Smith alternates between for his code-behind pages.) As someone coming into ASP.NET brand-new, I found it well worth reading, informative, and easy to understand. Of course, some stuff has changed in the intervening years, but enough has stayed the same so most of the book will still be useful to the ASP.NET noob. A good place for beginners to start. ****

User review
Sloppy editing
I bought this book recently to learn ASP.NET and feel I have mainly wasted my money. In the main the author simply has not put himself into the place of the newbie he aims the book at.

Rather than give opinions, let me quote specific examples from an early chapter. Listing 4.1 gives code to be added to the page_load method. When you try to run it it doesn't work. You find out 3 pages later that you should have added a group of `using` statements. It would have been easy to add these lines to the snippet, or at least give a forward reference to them.

In the same snippet you're invited to open a database named `pubs` (Publications) The following snippets perform various functions on this database. But this is not a standard database, and you're given no details of how it's put together so you can mock up your own in Access or whatever.

I advise against this book.

User review
Landfill
I too purchased ASP.NET by example and I feel strongly about how terrible I think it is. The positive reviews may have been written by the Authors or their friends. I feel that this book has been slapped together quickly in order to sell books rather than to impart knowledge. Never before have I seen a book with so many glaring errors. The website of examples was not even responding when I tried to access it. Then when it was back online, the same errors were in the example code as the book.

For example Chapter 9 (Using ASP.NET User Controls) is missing the fundamental InitializeComponent() and all of the related constructor methods that are required for the software to compile and run.
This book is full of information that looks good at first but when you start to really try and use it there is a lot of information missing.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. I am sick of handing over good money for poorly written reference books.

I agree with the reviewer who mentioned that this book would do more harm than good.

User review
Disappointing
After reading some of the other `by Example` books, this one was a disappointment. XML by example was excellent.
This book was too full of errors, and would do more harm than good for someone's first book.
There are better books out there to learn ASP.NET.

Perhaps a second edition, with closer editing, would be better

User review
ASP.NET ABCs
This book seems to be geared towards classic ASP developer who wants to learn about ASP.NET. There are chapters explaining the difference between ASP.NET and classic ASP and migrating Web applications from classic ASP to ASP.NET. Some code examples use HTML with embedded VB, some use HTML with code-behind files coded in C#, and some use HTML with embedded C# code. The book discusses .NET architecture/framework in some detail and explains complicated topics such as: MSIL, CLR, and JIT quite well. The book covers a lot of territory, including ADO.NET, working with XML data, HTML and Server Controls, Validation Controls, Debugging, User Controls, and Web Services. There are several appendixes which cover ASP.NET syntax, ADO.NET object model, VB.NET language reference, and C# language reference.

This book is a concise and incomplete reference of ASP.NET, but that appears to have been author's intent. It's well written, well organized and easy to understand. I think the intended audience, which is a beginner-to-intermediate Web developer, will find it useful. The author makes an assumption that the reader is familiar with HTML, XML, VB or C#, and knows how to use Visual Studio.NET. DO NOT buy this book if you studying for Microsoft Certification exam/s, it's not intended for that purpose.