Books for/about - asp.net

ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (Programmer to Programmer)

Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Marco Bellinaso

ISBN: 0764584642
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Summary: kickass asp.net 2.0
I have gone through alot of asp.net books. This is one of the asp.net 2.0 books which superceded in quality to the infamous 1.1 asp.net 1.1 web site programming book.
This is THE asp.net 2.0 book. i S^&* u not.

Summary: A great introduction to asp.net 2.0
Let's get one thing straight. If you're looking for a reference book, this isn't it. Marco doesn't explain every property of every control that you MIGHT want to use. He explains the most common properties of those controls that you probably ARE going to use, and that's a good thing. I've got my share of 1000+ page Wrox reference books, and they're great for looking up specific items, but not so great for learning.

A comparison is in order. If this were a cookbook, you wouldn't find dissertations on the relative merits of different cooking oils, or obscure recipes requiring ingredients you can't get at the local grocery store. This is the cookbook in which you'll find basic breads, pot roasts, and pastas... the staples that you WILL need at some point. It also includes some dishes you didn't even know you needed until you see them the first time. That makes this book a great place to start learning ASP.Net programming, or a useful walk-through to lead you from v1.1 to v2.0. Either way, it's a great book to have around during the transition.

I also see myself coming back to this book down the road when I need to implement one of the common situations Marco covers such as sending out batches of newsletters, or leveraging the asp.net membership system. I'll be saying "Hey, didn't Marco do that in his book?", and pulling it off the shelf for a quick look.

Summary: A pleasure to read
I had already bought 3 books about ASP.NET 2.0, and I have many many more about ASP.NET 1.x, before I bought this one...and now I wish I took it sooner! Yes, because this book is no like anything else. All other books I read provide detailed reference to the controls and classes of the framework...and they may actually do a good job at that. However, they often provide un-realistic short examples that span a page or two...too simple to actually reproduce real situations, and in fact most of the times these examples leave you thinking: "well, this is nice, but my app is not that simple...how can I really put this in practice into a real website...that must be fast, easy to maintain, provide logging, designed with the proper 3 tier architecture, reusable components etc. etc. ???". If you've ever thought something like this reading another book, then this is book IS THE ANSWER. It explains how to develop an entire (and pretty complex actually!!!) site from start to finish, convering not only the code, but also all the design phase, with a lot of interesting considerations, suggestions, and discussion of alternatives! It's a dream come true for a developer like me :-)
For those that are at their first experience with ASP.NET 2.0 (but NOT with ASP.NET in general...read something else first if you're coming straight from ASP or some other technology) it also provides good descriptions of the major new features (master pages, themes, membership, profiles, gridview, objectdatasource, menu & sitemap, webparts, localization etc. etc.). (5+++++++++)

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Professional ASP.NET 2.0

Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Bill Evjen Scott Hanselman Farhan Muhammad S. Srinivasa Sivakumar Devin Rader

ISBN: 0764576100
List Price: $49.99
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Summary: Wrox Press quality
The Wrox Press books are always well written and good for tutoring yourself in a new technology or enhancing your skills in an existing one.

Summary: Good introduction to ASP.NET 2.0
I only had experience with classic ASP and found the book very useful as an introduction to ASP.NET and the .NET class library.

Having all code samples in both Visual Basic and C# makes the book easier to read, and you get a good feel for both languages at the same time.

The negatives: the book is a bit verbose at times, and some of the chapters would have benefited from a bit more depth.

Summary: Not for professionals!
What I expect from series "professionals" - is not covering all topics on a level "how to drag a control from toolbox" but a deep discussion(why(background), what(internals) and how(valuable examples)) on the most important and difficult topics of the domain, using "real-life" examples(the examples in the book are useless).
The content lacks a holistic approach(don't like collected stories). Let it be not an all-in-all tutorial but some concept and in-depth material on the most significant topics.(though the publisher won't benefit from this kind of strategy - it's always better to write a dozen of books of one domain than having one may be two volumes covering essentials).

A very(!) good example of book for professionals(asp.net 1.1) - is the book of Fritz Onion - "Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C#".
Overall the book is good(for beginners) or for upgrading from previous version of asp.net(though it could have been more compact then).

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	ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed (Unleashed) Publisher: Sams Authors: Stephen Walther
ISBN: 0672328232 List Price: $59.99 Amazon Price: $37.79 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: I use it and recommend it to anyone learning or coding asp.net 2.0! There are books you buy and skim through once and there are those books that you go back to, knowing you will find what you need. ASP.NET 2.0 by Stephen Walther is the later As a professional developer I like to understand the tools I use in my craft. Stephen does a great job of teaching you how ASP.NET works and then shows you how to use that knowledge to build professional ASP.NET applications. The book will address almost any type of task you will encounter during your ASP.NET development and show you how to do it right. One of my favorite things are Stephen's tips that are spread throughout the book and help you avoid common (and sometimes very frustrating) issues that you would otherwise spend hours figuring out for yourself. I recommend this book to any developer working on ASP.NET 2.0 from beginner to expert. You will not need any other book for your ASP.NET work. Summary: Works for me! Let me start off by saying that I create ASP.NET C# 2.0 Web Applications, C# Windows Applications, and SQL Server 2005 database designs at work. I have not had to use this book and I cannot make a sound interests into loving this version as much as Steven Walther's last ASP.NET 1.1 Unleashed book. I believe all the rude comments about Steven Walther's lack of CSS, JavaScript, and Visual Studio.NET has overtaken ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed, but has backfired on the programmers that already know these languages inside and out. I found this version a little less unorganized than his first book, but that is probably because of the 2,000 pages and the novice factor of reading a huge book with a tight schedule. This edition focuses on developing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application from the ground up. Overall this book is probably the best book you will ever find on ASP.NET 2.0 C# and VB.NET. It extensively covers Visual Studio.NET 2005, ASP.NET, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX CallBacks, Configuration Files, Security Classes, Regular Expressions Classes, Data Classes, ADO.NET 2.0, OleDb Classes, SqlClient Classes and the most code you will ever read from one book. I really refer to Steven Walther's ASP.NET 1.0 Unleashed book, since I know it inside and out, but his new book covers more general knowledge and 2.0 Web Controls for developing Web applications as whole, so for that it worth the time and the money. Summary: Not as good as the other Walter's ASP books I own all of the Stephen Walter's ASP Unleashed books and loved every one of them. This one is just ok while the others were excellent. The explanations seem to be less concise and at the same time less deep. For example, it would be helpful when Login control is discussed to explain (it is explained later in the membership provider's chapters) where the users created are actually stored. Another annoying deficiency is that there is no chapter on differences compared to v1.1 and how to migrate from v1.1 and v2.0. If you need to migrate a v1.1 Visual Studio project to v2.0 Visual Studio project, this book is not the best book to use. If you need to upgrade an existing 1.x project, look elsewhere. That said it is still a pretty good book but not nearly as good as the other ASP Unleashed books by Walter (which were outstanding). Summary:

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Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference

Publisher: Microsoft Press
Authors: Dino Esposito

ISBN: 0735621764
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Summary: Errors and omissions
The discussion on how to use the new SqlCacheDependency class is wrong. The book claimed (in page 623) that "with SQL Server 2005 no setup work is needed and no external objects must be added to the Database.". In reality, you need to setup several permissions in the database side. In addition, you have to make sure that the compatibility level of your database is set to 90.

The source code example in page 622 will not work. The reason is that the SqlCacheDependency object was created after the command was executed. SqlCacheDependency must be created and linked to the command object BEFORE executing the command.

Further, the book made no mention of the requirements of the SQL statement of the command to be linked to the SqlCacheDependencyObject (e.g. you cannot use *, and table names must be qualified with its owner). If you do not follow these SQL rules, caching using the SqlCacheDependency will not work.

I have not finished reading the book; I don't think I will have motivation to do that. I'm not very confident that what I'll be reading is accurate because of the above errors and omissions.

Summary: Does what it says on the cover
This book is an excellent introduction to the facilitites available in ASP.NET 2.0. It covers simple topics such as HTML controls, WebControls, page lifecycle etc, and also goes a little deeper to discuss details of providers, personalisation & master pages to name but a few. There are also several chapters devoted to displaying data using ADO.Net which are useful. There's also a good chapter on ASP.NET security. Most if not all of this information is available on the web, however having a single book that covers these topics is well worthwhile - it's a great book to have by your side when you are writing ASP.NET sites.

Summary: Broad and deep coverage
The two books of this series (Core Reference & Advanced Topics) offer broad and deep coverage of ASP.NET.

All the important topics of ASP.NET web sites are covered in a mostly tutorial with a little reference fashion. The books are well researched. The coverage of what really happens during compilation, request processing, and expression evaluation is excellent. The books avoid being an MSDN rehash. By carefully pointing out which ASP.NET versions support which features, the books will be useful for working with any ASP.NET version. No matter what you're working on you'll find something useful in these books. Note that web services are not covered.

The terms "core reference" and "advanced topics" (which MS press is using on all the non beginner books) make no sense at all with these books. If you're serious, you need both books. Think of them as volumes 1 and 2 of a single book.

I do have some issues with these books. The biggest mistake was recommending the use of GDI+ (through the System.Drawing namespace). This is not supported. The System.Drawing namespace page in MSDN states "Classes within the System.Drawing namespace are not supported for use within a Windows or ASP.NET service. Attempting to use these classes from within one of these application types may produce unexpected problems, such as diminished service performance and run-time exceptions."

I didn't enjoy Dino's writing style. It's verbose (at times), he uses odd words to describe things, and was boring even by tech book standards.

The chapter on configuration was difficult. It would have better to cover configuration throughout the book, in the context of what was being configured, instead of a single all configuration and only configuration chapter.

The section of asynchronous pages was confusing and didn't really explain why asynchronous pages improve scalability.

Despite my reservations, there is much that's good about these books. Anybody who's serious about ASP.NET should consider getting both of them.

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Build Your Own ASP.NET Website Using C# & VB.NET (Build Your Own)

Publisher: SitePoint Pty Ltd
Authors: Zak Ruvalcaba

ISBN: 0957921861
List Price: $44.95
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Summary: Sitepoint ASP.NET
A great learn-on-the-fly guide for server-side web development using Microsoft's popular web development technologies. A quick and easy read; will have you up-and-running ASP.NET websites on your own IIS web server (with a SQL Server backend!) in almost no time.

Summary: Websites ? Do it yourself
This is an excellent book for those who know computers and have some know how of using a programming language. It teaches one how to make a web site from start to end. Easy approach and simplicity, they have troed to keep things easy. Nice humor too.

Worth buying.

Deepak Sharma
http://www.orientindia.biz

Summary: Good for novice .net programmer
This book gives a very good start for a novice .net programmer. The best thing about this book is that every example is given in C# and VB.NET

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	Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics Publisher: Microsoft Press Authors: Dino Esposito
ISBN: 0735621772 List Price: $49.99 Amazon Price: $31.49 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 4 Reviews: Summary: Broad and deep coverage The two books of this series (Core Reference & Advanced Topics) offer broad and deep coverage of ASP.NET. All the important topics of ASP.NET web sites are covered in a mostly tutorial with a little reference fashion. The books are well researched. The coverage of what really happens during compilation, request processing, and expression evaluation is excellent. The books avoid being an MSDN rehash. By carefully pointing out which ASP.NET versions support which features, the books will be useful for working with any ASP.NET version. No matter what you're working on you'll find something useful in these books. Note that web services are not covered. The terms "core reference" and "advanced topics" (which MS press is using on all the non beginner books) make no sense at all with these books. If you're serious, you need both books. Think of them as volumes 1 and 2 of a single book. I do have some issues with these books. The biggest mistake was recommending the use of GDI+ (through the System.Drawing namespace). This is not supported. The System.Drawing namespace page in MSDN states "Classes within the System.Drawing namespace are not supported for use within a Windows or ASP.NET service. Attempting to use these classes from within one of these application types may produce unexpected problems, such as diminished service performance and run-time exceptions." I didn't enjoy Dino's writing style. It's verbose (at times), he uses odd words to describe things, and was boring even by tech book standards. The chapter on configuration was difficult. It would have better to cover configuration throughout the book, in the context of what was being configured, instead of a single all configuration and only configuration chapter. The section of asynchronous pages was confusing and didn't really explain why asynchronous pages improve scalability. Despite my reservations, there is much that's good about these books. Anybody who's serious about ASP.NET should consider getting both of them. Summary: Written by somebody who knows what he is talking about Basics of .net framework is presented in a clear and lucid style. This book is a joy to read and . by the way there is not much difference in content wise between applied .Net framework programming and this book. My only worry is the speed at which microsoft is pushing .net versions as if there is no tommorrow! [Subsequently the catch up I have to do on reading all this!] Summary: FINALLY a book geared at the experienced developer... If you need to do more than just write sample code for tutorials, then this is the book for you. It provides valuable coverage of the ASP.NET landscape. I learned things about web services I never knew I could do with .NET. Well worth the money if you need to build PRODUCTION READY web services that need to solve real life problems. Summary:

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.NET 2.0 Wrox Box: Professional ASP.NET 2.0, Professional C# 2005, Professional .NET 2.0 Generics, and Professional .NET Framework 2.0

Publisher: Wrox
Authors: Bill Evjen Christian Nagel Joe Duffy Tod Golding Scott Hanselman

ISBN: 0470048409
List Price: $149.99
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Summary: Best Choice!
Books inside this box are very good.
Congratulation for Wrox! Packing books about same product or technology is a good idea. Specialy, when there is a better price.
It would be nice, to see a SQL-Server Wrox box offer.

Summary: Excellent all-around .NET 2005 pack
In my opinion, Wrox puts out some of the best books for coders, and as a .NET developer this pack is perfect. Between the 4 books they cover in detail the .NET framework, C#, ASP.NET, Windows development, higher-level OOP concepts (including generics), and ADO.NET, plus a slew of other things; with plenty of great examples and code snippets. Pretty much anything to do with .NET developed in included in the boxed set, with the exception of VB.NET -- there are many VB.NET samples in some of the books, but it's predominantly a C# centric package.

I think for intermediate to senior .NET web/windows developers, this is a definite must-have. Probably not for new coders as they do assume you understand coding basics, OOP concepts, and already have some experience with .NET.

Summary: Can't go wrong with this set
In my opinion this is one of the best values out there. These guys know how to write clear and concise examples. I know Wrox books can be intimidating for their geek factor. I mean they really don't go out of their way to have their covers designed. Instead they just choose to slap whatever balding team of programmers that wrote the book right on the cover. Still, I want to say that this set of books was a really nice read. It got me up to speed with .net 2.0 features in a matter of a week. The .net Framework 2.0 book is not a reference book by the way...it's more of a guide as to the *new* features. Keep in mind that this set seams to assume you have previous .net 1.0/1.1 experience but the C# book that it comes with is pretty much from the ground up. Don't get this set if your language of choice is VB.net.

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Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005

Publisher: Apress
Authors: Matthew MacDonald Mario Szpuszta

ISBN: 1590594967
List Price: $59.99
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Summary: Probably my last Apress Book
I've just about had it with Apress books such as this one. The text shows the code for the various examples, but often the code is just a snippet, or it's incomplete, or it has errors. And you don't find this out unless you download the book's code from Apress.com. If you're like me and like to work the examples out on your own as you read, the whole process becomes very aggravating. I think I'll switch back to books from O'Reilly. With O'Reilly books, the authors present a complete, working version of the code on the page.

Summary: Great Reference and examples
I'm an experienced programmer in other languages and an intermediate C# developer. I found the book excellent as I usually know what I need but struggle with syntax and examples. I have many reference books for various topics but I found this one to be one of the best in terms of breadth of topics, ease in locating them, and clarity of the explanations.

Where I tend to skim some of the others, this one is worth reading in its' entirety.

Summary: Good for an experienced programmer new to ASP
I found this book very useful and informative.
I have programming for 15 years but was a complete novice in ASP.Net. It presents the information in a straightforward manner I liked. It has been both a good guide to getting started and as a reference to many topics as I have been working. I found the information in chapter 5 to be helpful in making the switch from an application developer to a web seveloper.

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