Reviews for Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional

1. Frustrating at times - could be better.

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2006

   I bought this book to help me put together a number of business websites. I was torn between using PHP and ASP.net, but the release of Microsoft's Visual Web Developer Express Edition (powerful and free!) made this a `no brainer'.
   
   In many ways this book seemed the perfect place to start, it seemed to cover the fundamentals of building the sort of dynamic websites I had in mind. However, whilst it is based on the assumption that you are using VWD, the book doesn't really exploit the many labour-saving functions that VWD provides. I found myself having to type lots of 'dry' source code into VWD (then go through and correct my typos), when in hindsight much of this could have been avoided by using a few mouse-clicks in VWD.
   
   I hit a major stumbling block when following the example website - I got stuck when the website started using a database login script which I just couldn't get to work on my installation of SQL server express (despite numerous re-installs etc.) - and the accompanying help was next to useless (it pretty much says configuring SQL Express is a topic covered in other books). Not good enough really, as this is pitched as a 'Beginning' book, and this pretty-much ended my ability to run examples from further-on in the book.
   
   In summary; It doesn't make the best of VWD, and a 'noobs-guide' to SQL Server express should've been included; virtually everyone will be using it in conjunction with VWD when working throught the book.

2. Really Really Good!

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2006

   Ive been doing windows applications and smart device applications in C# and VB.Net and I wanted a book on ASP.Net so I could write a web application.
   
   I bought this book and ASP.Net for Dummies. I wish I hadnt bothered with the Dummies book because this was the only book I needed.
   
   Creating a site from beginning to end is the way to learn and explains the 3-tier architecture and then goes on to go through creating your own e-commerce site from scratch.
   
   The book covers creating tables & stored procs etc in sql server, creating business tier code, creating presentation tier code using web forms, controls and master pages, implementing security (users etc), ssl, improving performance and even paypal, credit card transactions and amazon web services.
   
   The book is well laid out and easy to read and the balloon shop example is fun to create.
   
   N.b This book may be a little advanced for someone thats never done any C#.

3. C# ASp.net

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2005

   The picture of this book does not indicate that the book is for C# and not vb.net, so beware if you use vb.net