Rating:  - Well Written and Thorough ASP.NET Guide
This is an excellent book.
Not only did I find this book's logical and well-paced discussion of ASP.NET's architecture very valuable when I was new to ASP.NET, I have found myself going back to it again and again to find answers while I'm working. This is one of the select few books I keep where I can reach from where I work.
Note that this is *not* a book for beginners. It assumes you are already familiar with .NET, and also with the basics of how the web works. I liked that because I had been using .NET for a long time before I first wrote an ASP.NET application, so I was glad it didn't waste any paper covering ground I already knew. Readers whose first ASP.NET application is also going to be their first .NET application will probably want not want to make this the first .NET book they read. Likewise, anyone not acquainted with the basics of how web applications generally work will probably want to start elsewhere. But for experienced developers looking to understand the specifics of ASP.NET, this is the perfect book.
Rating: - Great for understanding how ASP.NET works
I have several years of experience programming Microsoft Windows and I am new to developing web applications. Having read several other ASP.NET books and written a few web and web service applications, I still did not have a clear conceptual model of how ASP.NET works. In this book, Fritz Onion is able to explain the architecture and mechanism of ASP.NET clearly and concisely with illustrative code examples. This contrasts sharply with other books filled with extensive code examples but provide little unerstanding of ASP.NET itself. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has other software development experience (Windows, C++, Object-Oriented, etc) but new to web applications and ASP.NET.
Rating: - Must-read for experienced developers new to asp.net
Are you an experienced developer? Are you new to ASP.NET (but have at least some understanding of web programming)? If so, you have found your book!
I fit the above criteria, and I purchased this book. It is clearly and concisely written, contains very relevant material, and has a well-planned flow. The book does an outstanding job of explaining the intricacies of the new .NET platform- how it works, and how to properly utilize it. It's more for teaching the reader .NET than for reference- though you will likely use it for reference in the future.
The author does a great job of explaining the major points of the architecture. The chapters on error handling, data binding, validation, state management and security are especially well written (yes, basically all of it). You will learn how to build a basic .net app from the ground up. However, the book does assume a certain level of intelligence and experience in the reader- it won't hold your hand, nor bog you down with the obvious details (however you want to look at it). Yet it still manages to cover its topics very thoroughly.
Other books often give vanilla examples and have multiple authors who use all different styles, and expect you to learn from cookie-cutter examples without telling you why they chose to do something a certain way, or if alternatives even exist. Unfortunately, the problems we face when developing usually don't fit an example in a book, so we actually need to understand the architecture with which we're working. This book is the first step towards understanding the hows and whys of .NET. It should be read cover to cover. It's so well written and concise that I could actually go out on a limb here and call it a page-turner! :)
After reading it, I had confidence in how I was designing my apps because I knew how it would behave, and knew I was using
the most efficient method.
This book should not be the only one in your collection. Truth is, there is no one-stop-shopping book for ASP.NET. I recommend the following in addition to this title:
Programming ASP.NET (O'Reilly & Assoc.)- a more thorough title and excellent reference, but leaves out much of the explanation/understanding that this book provides.
ASP.NET Website Programming (Wrox) - explains web methodology thoroughly, with excellent examples
ADO.NET in a Nutshell (O'Reilly & Assoc.) - indispensible if you're using databases
These four books will be all you need, and you will keep going back to each of them.
Rating: - Best book
I have read over 4 books on ASP.Net including the big, bulky MCAD/MCSD self paced training kit. None of these books gave me any idea of whats really going on inside. All the books just taught me how to put controls on the form and do some manipulations. After reading "Essential ASP.Net", I feel that I have wasted a lot of time going through all the other books. This book taught me everything that I ever wanted to know.
Though this book does'nt cover every topic in (unnecessary) detail, after reading this book, the concepts become so clear that you can skim through the MSDN documentation for details.
The organization of the book and the authors writing style are amazing.
Rating: - Clear and in-depth
This is the best ASP.NET I have found so far. I keep coming back to it.
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