This book is the perfect reference for any Intermediate/Advanced ASP.NET programmer. It may not be as helpful if you are a beginner because the coverage is too wide and too deep to keep the interest of a beginner. But it is a must-have as a desk reference when you get past the beginner stage. We looked at many books on the general subject of .NET and the specific subjects of VB.NET, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET to learn how to successfully create Web Applications that users love. There are a lot of books out there on .NET that are more confusing than helpful. And most books - just touch the basics, don't give detailed explanations, or don't have sample code that works. There are a few exceptions and this book is one of them. It doesn't have any of the above mentioned problems.
What is most impressive about this book is the readability of the material. If you are interested in the details of how something works in ASP.NET, you will find that once you pick up this book and start reading it, it is difficult to put it down. The explanations are clear, concise, yet detailed and the different topics are all very neatly interconnected.
If your primary interest is in finding a book with code to modify for your own project situation, this is NOT the book. There are other excellent books for that purpose. 'ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook' by The ASP Alliance is one that we prefer(despite most claims, the code in this book does work after you find workarounds to Visual Studio .NET problems first).
The book being reviewed here can be best used for accomplishing the purpose of gaining a COMPLETE working knowledge of ASP.NET. It will obviously take many months of dedicated effort (at least 10-15 hours a week) to master this subject. And there isn't a better book in the market that is so effective in the long run. This is the preferred Desk Reference that all of us use at our company.
One more thing - doing a price comparison, we found that this book also offers the best value since it's priced around the same range as most ASP.NET books but covers the subject end to end while the others only addres a few topics. The high price of .NET books has been a disappointment to us especially due to their general low quality.
Enjoy this complete desk reference to programming in ASP.NET! You will really see the return in a few months.
Once again, I have to admit that I have a strong bias here... I read Dino's articles in MSDN religously, and love his stuff. I bought his book based on his name alone and as I expected, it's great.The style of this book is exactly the same as his stuff in MSDN. If you aren't familiar with it, I mean that advanced users will love it b/c it's always interesting and practical, but if you are a newbie, it's clear and understandable so it'll be great for you too.
If you aren't an ASP.NET developer, then there's a lot to learn. ASP.NET represents a fundamental shift in thinking (what in .NET doesn't?) but if anything, it's much simpler and intuitive than ASP ever could be. I've played with all of the code in this book and everything compiled and worked as expected. The examples are all things that you'll probably confront in your day to day development and Dino gets right to the heart of the issue.
He's unquestionably one of the greatest minds in .NET and he is a superb communicator. One of the best features of this book is that it never gets boring and it never skips important details that leave you wondering how to do what he's talking about. I know this sounds petty, but coming up with real examples that aren't silly or overly complex (and always relevant) takes a lot of skill.
If you don't read his articles in MSDN - then start, you'll be glad you did. If you don't own this book and want to learn ASP.NET, But it - you'll be glad you did.
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