Rating:  - Very good book; Better than '..for dummies' book
Scott Mitchell is a very good author and has a great deal of ASP knowledge. This book took me from knowing absolutely nothing and a few days later I was creating a Web application for my company (and it actually works). The data explanations are very good.
The book does not detail ALL the web server controls, but a good majority of them. The details that it does lack you can easily pick up from the author's web site.
I also have the ASP for dummies book, but it does not compare to this one.
Rating:  - Useless book = waste of time + waste of money
The more I read this book, the more I realized that I was wasting my time and the money I paid for this book. I've always been a fan of the 24 Hours book I buy these line of books to learn new technologies. This one, however, leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, it doesn't break examples into visual enumerated instructions; instead, it mixes the instructions with the text, personal comments, etc. Also, it talks and talks, but does very little, making the information very diluted. I can't say anything positive about this book.
Rating: - Great book!
An excellent book if you know HTML and have had some experience with databases and web programming. I am a static web programmer needing to learn dynamic creation of websites. This is all I need! Great Book!
Rating: - Especially good at data-related subjects
An excellent resource for beginners. If you are a complete beginner to ASP.NET, and also want to brush up on Visual Basic, start with Hatfield's ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies. After that, come to this book by Mitchell.
His writing style is particularly good for people who like to work through concepts step by step, with their right hand on their keyboard and their left on the book. He is careful with his examples, doesn't move too quickly, doesn't make many assumptions. I very rarely get lost when working through one of Mitchell's chapters. Definately can't say that about many other resources.
This is not as good a starting point for complete beginners than is Hatfield's Dummies book. But if you are getting more comfortable with your skills, this is the next place to go. Lastly: this book is ESPECIALLY helpful with data-related subjects. Working with the DataSource control, the GridView control. A review of basic SQL behavior (all that most of us will ever need). This book walks you gently right through these areas.
This was one of the early ASP.NET 2.0 books to be published, and I was worried about it being rushed, about it relying on the CTP version instead of the release version (a constant problem with early-release tech books). I needn't have worried.
Rating:  - Meets Expectation
I read and did all of the exercises of this book from beginning to end. I did not skip a single page. I know that the cons comment is longer, but I think you would appreciate it better.
Pros: It is a good book for beginners. It provided easy steps-by-step examples. This book did meet my expectations but did nothing to "WOW" me to give it a good score. Over all, this is a good book and I recommended it with conditions mentioned below.
Cons: There are some mistakes in the book that could lead you in the wrong direction. I wonder why the publisher DID NOT provide an errata for this book. But, with a little programming knowledge you can fix the errors and move on. The last example when you create the photo website has major problems. The author converted the photo website from another project causing major errors. It has mistakes that are so apparent I am suprise that the proof-readers did not catch them. If you have no programming background, you will be at a lost with the database section of the photo website because they talked about tables that were not even create. Such as a Products table for a photo website that contains no products. Actually, there should be no Products table AT ALL !!! I know that the previous sentences were confusing, but that is the way the book was written.
I hope this helps you choose a book for your own preference.
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