Reviews for Microsoft® ASP.NET 2.0 Step By Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

1. Not Fit for Purpose

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2006

   This book's content and title don't match up. The Microsoft Press 'Step by Step' guides are supposed to be a hands-on tutorial for new and new to topic programmers, focusing on fundamental techniques and features. A better title for the book would have been "A Tour of ASP.NET 2.0 for Experienced Developers". The author assumes the reader will have a strong grasp of OOP terminology and many new programmers will find the book very difficult to read if they don't have that background knowledge.
   
   If you are an experienced developer and what to get a tour of what ASP.NET 2.0 can do for you then it is a good book (albeit with some minor errors in some of the code examples). If you are expecting this to be the step by step introduction to ASP.NET development, it is not fit for that purpose.
   

2. For real beginners

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

   If you are new to Visual Studio, this book may help you to understand the principles of how to use the Visual Studio integrated development environment to define active server pages. However, if you really want to understand some of the details of ASP 2.0 then you will be better off with Dino Esposito's book "Programming Microsoft ASP 2.0 Core Reference."

   For example, if you want to understand how to code up nested mater pages, this book has a sentence or two on the subject whereas the "Core Reference" book has several pages with clear code examples.

   This book has lots of screen images but glosses over many important details. In contrast, the "Core Reference" book has very few screen images but has several diagrams with accompanying text that give a good explanation of the ASP 2.0 architecture.

   I also feel that this book contains too much text that reads like a bedtime story. I was expecting concise text that explained ASP 2.0 in a step by step manner. This book did not meet my expectations in this regard.