Reviews for Beginning ASP.NET 4: In C# and Vb (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

1. Excellent reference for the new version of ASP.Net

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   While I agree with other reviews of this product that some of the information is quite basic, I do believe that this book will give you a huge head start in creating cutting-edge websites. And after all the title of the book contains the word 'Beginning' so I wouldn't expect it to be set at a level of an advanced seasoned professional.
   
   Anyway, the beauty of ASP.Net 4 is that you have to do less coding than you did in earlier versions and you can create a lot of your website without hardly touching code at all (if you use the free Visual Web Developer software from Microsoft). What was a nice surprise was the inclusion of a jQuery (Javascript library) chapter.
   
   I am a seasoned ASP.Net (VB) professional and you can take it from me that there is no better place to start learning .Net than this book. It's superbly and clearly written. The samples are easy to follow and much of the book is step-by-step. The book has been written by one of the top authors in the ASP.Net environment (I've also had blog posts answered by him too) and his authoring skills shine through in this book.
   
   And at 800+ pages, it's great value for money. There's also an accompanying website for the book where you can download all the code samples from the book.
   
   Highly recommended place to start. And yes, I believe with a bit of effort and time on your part, you could start creating cutting-edge applications using this book. It's a gentle but excellent introduction to ASP.Net 4.

2. Great book

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   Firstly I must admit that I do have a very good knowledge of both xHTML and CSS plus basic knowledge of many other programing languages.
   
   I found this book a great introduction to asp.net. It explained how to crate a site, included code and explained how and what the programming was doing.
   
   To make your own site all you need is to follow the template the writer provides and adapt it to your own needs. I would definitly recommend this book to anyone who wants to develope a website in asp.net. Of course it would be difficult with no previous programming experience, but then why are you reading this book? Go do a bit of HTML/CSS first, even if it is just W3C's excellent tutorials before picking this book up.
   
   In short, great book, previous experience is NOT needed to follow the book as all the code is given to you, however if you want to be able to adapt the book for your own needs the you will need some experience.

3. only attemtp if you know what you are doing

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   When I got this book i was very excited at the thought of being able to create a web site. It does say you need no major information about this area, and only a basic skills. However, i found straight away that this is not really so! I think you would need much more than basic skills to get the best from this book.It is well laid out and easy to read each chapter, and full of information, but for a novice not so easy to understand. If you do have experience i am sure it would be full of useful information which would allow you to progress with your web or programming skills.

4. A good solid introduction to Windows based Web development.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   As of 2010 I have used ASP.Net professionally for 9 years. I am a programmer by trade and have used .Net 1.1,2 and 3.5
   
   The usual problem with books on programming is that they are always either too basic or too advanced. Sometimes the problem is that they are too out of date or even too new, based on technologies which no-one uses yet. And sometimes it is because they assume or demand knowledge of other areas before what is being taught makes sense.
   
   Programming in ASP.Net is one of those tasks that requires a reasonable amount of knowledge of a number of things before any headway can be made. An aspiring developer needs to know a smattering of HTML, some CSS, a little bit of Windows configuration, a bit of Visual Studio and either VB or C# syntax. Later on you'll need Java and probably SQL too.. That is a lot of things to learn at once and it can be daunting.
   
   The excellent thing about this book is that the early chapters address this reality. Chapter one address the Visual Studio problem, chapter 2 is about basic HTML and Chapter 3 shows CSS. Too many books and programmers skip over these basics and dive straight into web forms and web services and trust me, you need these basics. I read these chapters with interest and after nearly 10 years of doing this professionally I learnt a couple of things, especially in the CSS primer.
   
   Once the basics are under control, the book moves onto consistent page design (master pages), web forms, web controls and validation. These are all often seen as a bit basic but again they are important and being proficient in these will make the reader a useful programmer and team member. The last few chapters address databases, security and deployment. I like that the chapters on databases are further in. Often I connect to SQL server but a large number of web sites connect to something else.
   
   Once the reader has finished and understood this book and with 3 or 4 months concerted effort I would suggest that they are in a very good position to develop simple web sites to a commercial standard. We are not talking developing Google here, but small company web sites or business to business portals.
   
   Note that no CD is included with this book - Visual Web Developer is a free download from Microsoft so no software other than a Windows PC is required.
   
   This book is well written, concise and covers the basics very well.

5. Very basic but good introduction.

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, April 12st, 2010

   The book is very well written and easy to follow, it introduces not only asp.net but also css, jquery, entity framework with good to follow examples. Very good introduction, but you need more knowledge to create a fancy website ;)