Rating:  - Good book.. Could be the only ASP.NET book u need
This is my first book for ASP.NET. I like it very much so far. The book flows easily as such. But some of the topics are covered in incosistent depth. For example, the authors went nuts about ASP Controls (the chapter#5 is about 150 pages long!! Out of which the Calendar control is more than 50 pages long!!!). Some topics are, on the other hand, have bare-bones coverage. The editor(s) should have fixed these kind of problems.
But overall, the authors have done pretty decent job. This can safely be your first (and may be only) ASP.NET book. For some areas here and there you might need to refer else where.
Watch out for the unavaoidable evil in computer books... errata. Looks like the authors used different code base to generate the screen shots :-) Make sure you check their website before pulling ur hair.
Despite its minor short-comings, its a very book to learn ASP.NET. It has enough detail to pull off a non-trivial project. Don't let the size intimidate you! It is because of code duplication in both C# and VB.NET.
Rating:  - Best Book Yet
I must say, this is the second book I have purchased by Jesse Liberty and he fails to disappoint once again.
This book is very straightforward with no filler. There are plenty of code examples and each one is explained in clear and concise language.
I would recommend this book for either c# programmers or vb.net programmers. Most of the examples (if not all, haven't finished the WHOLE book yet) are given in both c# and vb.net.
Kudos to both authors and O'Reilly editing for releasing a quality book.
Rating: - What a great book!
I loved Liberty's C# tutorial, but this introduction to ASP.NET is even better.
This book teaches every aspect of building ASP.NET applications, with detailed analysis of the various controls and good depth of coverage on advanced topics such as data binding and interacting with SQL Server.
Yes, this book IS good for beginners (I didn't really know ASP before I read this book) but it is also good for intermediate programmers because it goes way beyond the basics.
The first part is introductory and thorough, but the second part (beginning about chapter 14) gets into the nitty gritty of creating custom controls, creating and using web services and then goes on to provide important infomration about security, performance and deployment.
I can't think of a better primer on ASP.NET and I recommend it highly.
Rating:  - Maybe not for pure VB.NET programmers
I bought this book mainly to learn ASP.NET and since I am an experienced ASP and VB programmer I thought it would be nice to go through once with the VB examples and a second time with the C# examples. Sadly tho the difference in the authors become very apparent around chapter 10 and 11. From here a lot of the examples are only given in C# and the VB.NET code just ignored. The first 9 chapters I thought was very well covered, I can only assume that chapters 10-12 was written by the other author. I am very dissapointed that this had occured, up until this point I really enjoyed reading it. Now I have to sadly by ANOTHER book, in the hopes of getting a clearer VB.NET with ASP.NET understanding. If C# is your game, then this book is very good. So far I just found one example that didn't work (a whole section of code seemed to have been excluded) but other than that good book. Only on chapter 12, so hopefully once I hit 13 the the VB.NET guy is back.
Rating: - Best intro to ASP.NET - Excellent
This book is simply excellent. It starts with the core fundamentals, and builds your expertise from there. Every aspect of ASP.NET is covered in detail.
The authors begin with a simple HTML based "hello world" program and quickly build up the asp.net capabilities. They show integrated code and the (preferred) code-behind. The event model is explained in detail. Each of the major controls is shown and the validation controls are described in detail. The authors also show debugging techniques and proper coding idioms.
Every example is shown in both VB.NET and C#, which I found very helpful. This helped me see the similarities in the language and clarified areas that might otherwise be confusing.
The book includes a lengthy section on interacting with data, including a primer on ADO.NET and list-bound controls. The section on custom and user controls is excellent.
They spend 3 chapters on Web Services, and provide a comprehensive overview of this topic.
Finally, the book is rounded out with chapters on caching and performance, security and deployment and configuration.
The writing is clear and crisp, and despite the fact that there are two authors, it reads as if written by just one. The material is delieverd with clarity, and the authors provide unbelievable support on their web site, where you can obtain the source code and also ask questions directly of the authors!
All in all, I was very impressed by this excellent introduction to ASP.NET, and I recommend it highly.
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