While ASP.NET for Dummies is "for Dummies," you should already be familiar with programming concepts. As with most Active Server Page-related books, ASP.NET for Dummies uses Visual Basic .NET as its choice of programming languages. If you don't know Visual Basic .NET, don't fret. The book spends several chapters teaching the basics of what you need to know in order to program for ASP.NET. If you have never programmed before, you will most likely find that this moves too fast. However, if you know a scripting language such as JavaScript or VBScript you should have no trouble keeping up with the coverage of Visual Basic .NET in this book.

It is worth pointing out that this book doesn't stop at just covering the creation of ASP.NET pages, but it also covers creating full-fledge ASP.NET applications. The book presents a couple of ASP.NET applications that are larger and more practical than standard book examples. Within the text of the book a chat room and a classified application are both included. On the CD there is also a guest book application. Code for all three applications is on the CD.

The CD with this book is worth noting. Most ASP.NET books don't include a CD, let alone a CD with lots of useful stuff. This CD has five bonus chapters containing over a hundred additional pages. It also contains the author's source code so you don't have to hunt it down on the Web. A number of third party software products are also included. Some of these you may not find useful. Others such as the editors you may find extremely valuable.

Will ASP.NET for Dummies make you an expert ASP.NET developer? The answer is no, it won't make you an expert, however, no beginning level ASP.NET book will. What ASP.NET for Dummies will do is get you up and running with the foundational topics necessary for creating real-world ASP.NET pages. Once you are done with this book, you'll be able to create a wide variety of ASP.NET pages. If you are going to create professional-level pages, you will want to follow this book up with an intermediate advanced book.

In summary, if you have a little programming background, then you should be ready for ASP.NET. If you want a book that teaches you the basics of implementing ASP.NET in a relatively straightforward manner, then ASP.NET for Dummies accomplishes the task. With a price of only (...) including a CD containing valuable content, I have to give this book five stars. It is definitely worth the cost. In fact, I would say this book is under-priced (...) --which seems unusual for a computer book these days! If you can get a copy of this book at a discount, then this book is a steal!

One final note, a number of excellent ASP sites are not mentioned in the book. This includes ASP101.com. 15seconds.com, 4GuysFromRolla.com, ASPWire.com and more.

22 of 22 found the following review helpful:

Excellent book for beginners!!!  Jul 01, 2002
By Ash Mahajan
I have used this book to help teach a beginning class in ASP.NET. I myself was new to this platform when I took on this class. Both myself and my students really appreciated this book. In particular I liked the fact that the author did not assume any knowledge of OO, .net framework, VB.NET, VB, and/or classic ASP. His code samples build in complexity over the span of the book, and I worked through 90% of the examples in the book and found them to be almost entirely error-free. If you already know something about web development, the HTML in this book may not entirely meet your "standards", but that's not the focus of this book. While reading the book may give you a good overview, the real value will come from actually typing the code. There are many ASP.NET books that are for beginners, but this one assumes very little knowledge on your part. I evaluated the "ASP.NET Step by Step" by MS Press, and the "Beginning ASP.NET using VB.NET" from Wrox Pub. as possible candidates for my course text, and while both of these books are exhaustive and excellent, they lack the simplicity and humor of this Dummies book. If you are a programmer who is migrating to the ASP.NET platform, perhaps you will be better served by these other candidates from MS Press and Wrox Pub. However, if you are not a programmer, then this Dummies book is the way to go. As a final piece of advice I would suggest that you supplement this book with other books/articles/online sources that speak more to the theory of topics such as "Web Services", "J2EE versus .net", "SOAP, XML", etc. Overall, I give this book two thumbs up and five stars without hesitation!!!

33 of 38 found the following review helpful:

Too much Web Forms  Feb 09, 2003
By Jeffry Houser "reboog"
I've been doing web development for over 7 years. I have a Computer Science Degree and have written 3 books on ColdFusion. I bought this book for a really quick intro to .NET development.

Did I get it? Yes! The book seemed to be very well organized. The writing was solid and straight forward. I had no problem understanding or reading this book. I thought the chapter explaining how to get data out of a database was particularly good.

Now I can't give this book five stars. Why? There is too much information on web forms (I believe it was 5 chapters). The author tells us to forget everything we know about regular HTML forms. Web Forms are just a layer of abstraction over regular HTML forms (They submit onto themselves), it seems like a bad approach to understanding them. A full chapter is dedicated to 'fixing' web forms to deal with problems that come up when a form that submits onto itself. I don't see the benefit of using them and everyone I've spoken to who uses them is having major performance issues in production.

I can understand that web forms are a big thing touted by microsoft, but I would have preferred to see less real estate for web forms and have other topics, such as error handling, put into this book.

J

12 of 12 found the following review helpful:

An Excellent Book!  Jul 28, 2002

I am an HTML developer who works with ASP websites all the time. I do not know ASP nor VB, but I wanted to learn ASP.NET because I know it will be everywhere in a year or so. I've had good luck with the 24 Hours/21 Days series from Sams Publishing so I got that book first. Big mistake.

I must have read the first three chapters three or four times and I was still confused. The author assumed a lot of knowledge of VB and ASP and I was totally and completely frustrated.

The other day I purchased ASP.NET for Dummies and I absolutely love this book. If you've never written ASP or worked with VB then this is the book you neeed to get. Bill explains everything in a simple way and each code example is explained.

8 of 8 found the following review helpful:

Laying a Solid Foundation  Feb 19, 2003
By Maximus T. Williams "Max"
To be quite honest I have not been a big fan of the "Dummies" series, but author Bill Hatfield has written a real gem. He seems to have a clear understanding of the skill set of his target audience - novice programmer. Yet he treats his audience with respect with intelligent dialog delivered at an even pace. This combines to create a solid foundation of learning. I was particularly impressed with Part III of Chapter 6 'Classy Objects and Methodical Properties.' In this section he introduces the reader to programming objects, a sometimes-intimidating concept. By using a "real-world" example - his car, he clearly constructs and then breaks down the components that constitute an object. Outstanding through and through. If you are new to programming and interested in learning the basics of ASP.net I highly recommend this book.

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