A good book to use both as a learning guide, and as a reference. Though some of the code examples could have been tightened up a little bit, they do a nice job of starting at the very bottom/core of ASP and working their way up -- teaching you how to use ASP to create quality applications instead of glue and popsickle stick nightmares.

I was reading this book as a sequel to "Programming C#" by Jesse
Liberty. . I come from a Java/ColdFusion (mainly web applications)
background and wanted to venture out onto the .Net platform for web
application development.

The book is divided into 19 chapters (over 900 pages) of detailed
and valuable information on the ASP.Net 2.0, as described below;
01. ASP.NET 2.0 Overview
02. Visual Studio 2005 examination
03. Controls in ASP.NET
04. Basic Controls
05. Advanced Controls
06. Web Site Basics
07. Tracing, Debugging, Error Handling
08. Validation in ASP.NET
09. Data Access
10. ADO.NET
11. Forms-Based Security
12. Master Pages
13. Personalizing in ASP.NET
14. Custom & User Controls
15. Creating Web Services
16. Using Web Services
17. Caching & Performance
18. Application Configuration
19. Deploying your site

The chapters and content is laid out logically with plenty of
textual and graphical information (charts, screenshots, e.t.c.)
which makes it very easy to follow for a novice to intermediate
user. For a user who is already experienced in other languages or
even the C# language, I felt it a bit of an overkill to explain each
component in 2.0 frameworks in detail. Each control that a .Net
programmer has heard of (or not) is explained with relevant control
properties in a tabular format and a small example to back it up.
The authors also point out several differences between 1.1 and 2.0
versions of this framework along the way. As with most O'Reilly
books, this one is extremely informative and comprehensive. At
times, however, it does feel overly informative.

Once you get past chapter 05, the conceptual information about
state, error handling, directives is presented. The chapters on data
access present exhaustive information on grids, data lists, repeater
controls, etc while the one on ADO.Net provides information on
establishing database connections, creating data relations (foreign
and primary keys). The chapters 12 and 13 cover the new feature in
2.0 like the Master Pages, Personalization, Themes, Web-Parts, etc.
Though the domain of this book is extraordinarily large, I did not
find anything on email objects (System.mail). I have known some
people who complained about not being able to see any Visual Basic
code. For me, however, I have been working with coldfusion,
javascripts, java and action scripts 2.0, so the C# syntax looks
familiar and more understandable.

In conclusion, this book is an excellent reference to anyone
experienced with ASP.Net 1.1 and a great learning guide to someone
new to ASP.net 2.0. If the [experienced] reader gets past the first
five chapters, then he/she should have no problem in mastering the
latest and greatest of the Microsoft framework in a short time. I
have definitely learned an incredible amount from this book, and I
can say with confidence that I have added ASP.Net to my repertoire.

I haven't written many asp.net apps in the last 1.5 years having been pulled into other programming projects. I was recently assigned to a new project that is strictly asp.net.

I found this book to provide both the breadth of topic that I was interested in and just the right amount of depth in each of these topics so that I could approach my new project with confidence.

I have been able to download coding examples from the author's website and was pleased to find that the ones I executed actually ran w/o modification.

The book now sits proudly on my desk, well worn and often referenced.

Are you a programmer or web developer who wants to build web applications using Microsoft's powerful new ASP.NET 2.0 platform? Well, you're in luck! Authors Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz, have done an outstanding job of writing a 3rd edition of a book that will teach you all you need to know to build professional quality, interactive, robust data-driven web applications.

Liberty and Dan Hurwitz, begin with an introduction to ASP.NET and the .NET platform. Then, they explore the Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment and show you how you can use it most efficiently to create ASP.NET applications. The authors continue by providing complete coverage of ASP.NET Server Controls. In addition, the authors next go beyond the controls to show you how to use code-behind effectively, and how to manage state in the otherwise stateless Web and describe the lifecycle of a Web page in detail and, finally show you how to take advantage of advanced directives. They also examine Tracing, Debugging, and Error Handling in ASP.NET. Then, the authors look at validation. They continue by looking at Web Data Access, and explore the new controls in ASP.NET 2.0 that make interacting with data sources such as databases and XML files far easier than ever before. In addition, the authors next cover ADO.NET. They also describe in detail how to implement forms-based security to constrain user access to your web site over the Internet. Then, the authors describe features that help you build professional-quality Web applications. They continue by showing you how to allow your users to tailor the look and feel of your site to their own requirements and how to store that information so when the user returns, the site remembers the user's preferences and state. In addition, the authors cover the powerful, yet easy to use, technology that allows you to extend ASP.NET to create controls customized for your specific problem domain. They also show you how to create web services that allow other applications to interact with your application programatically. Then, the authors show you how to create client applications that present data retrieved from Web services. They continue by focusing on issues related to building fast, scalable applications. In addition, the authors next cover application logic and configuration. Finally, they focus on deployment.

The good thing about this excellent book is that it helps you get the job done. Needless to say, this book simplifies the configuration and deployment of applications.

What happened to the VB.Net to accompany the C#? MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT that all the VB.Net is gone!

I don't care what you C# snobs think about VB.Net. Fact is, the junior programmers in our shop probably will never learn C/C++ or C# because VB.Net is definitely good enough. I find myself using it more and more, especially when I want to code something quickly with a minimum of hassle.

Jesse Liberty continues to shine as one of the best .NET authors in the industry today. With the 3rd Edition of 'Programming ASP.NET', Liberty hits another home run out of the park, providing a resource that experienced and new ASP.NET users can use every day.

Cramming over 900 pages of information into this book, this book is a fantastic bargain at its retail price point. 19 Chapters are covered in this guide, the likes of which I will outline here:

01. ASP.NET 2.0 Overview
02. Visual Studio 2005 examination
03. Controls in ASP.NET
04. Basic Controls
05. Advanced Controls
06. Web Site Basics
07. Tracing, Debugging, Error Handling
08. Validation in ASP.NET
09. Data Access
10. ADO.NET
11. Forms-Based Security
12. Master Pages
13. Personalizing in ASP.NET
14. Custom & User Controls
15. Creating Web Services
16. Using Web Services
17. Caching & Performance
18. Application Configuration
19. Deploying your site

This book is laid out in logical structure and is very easy to follow. The author covers each section in furious detail, providing plenty of examples and screenshots to make things fun for all level users. Intelligent uses of design charts, bolding, and lists only add to the user experience.

ASP.NET 2.0 is different from 1.1, and the author goes over the differences and why it's not a simple upgrade like adding a couple of new windows like in previous iterations of Microsoft Word. My favorite addition in 2.0 and the most handy new feature is the addition of the new Master Pages which enable a common look to progress throughout an entire web site. Before this feature was included, it would have required a lot more work and time to accomplish this task. With 2.0, Microsoft's .NET team has simplified the entire process.

To put it simply, this is an outstanding guide, but it's not perfect. The book is so large that it might be overwhelming for some users who would prefer a more streamlined guide to learning ASP.NET 2.0. Probably the best way to dive into this technology would be to pick up a copy of ASP.NET 2.0 A Developer's Notebook to get a quicker overview, and then read this guide to get into the finer details.

If you program with ASP.NET 2.0 or one of the earlier versions, you would be remiss to not pick up this book. It's a great deal and the writing is top notch. You won't be disappointed!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Advanced users building web applications will find the latest third edition of Jesse Liberty & Dan Hurwitz's Programming ASP.NET provides a fine hands-on introduction to both ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, with an eye to moving into productive solutions as quickly as possible. From using Master pages to create web site consistency to understanding rendering methods and custom control properties, handling Cache dependencies, and populating on demand, Programming ASP.NET covers all the functions essential to quick and efficient applications.

I generally liked this book. There are some reviews on this site that dismiss it, but I have to disagree. This book would be a good intro for those new to ASP.NET, expecially to ASP 2.0. I do agree that experienced developers will probably want a bit more, and that they may event get tired of the extreme detail provided in some sections. However, ASP.NET is a complex system, and details are important. Besides, I've never found that a single book can provide all the information that I need.

I'm an MCT, and I've been using and teaching ASP 2.0 since March 2005, so I expected to already know everything in this book. However, the book pointed out some things that I didn't know. That was a pleasant surprise.

I believe that this book deserves a space in your reference library.

Anyone with any experience with ASP.NET will be bored to tears with this book. If you need to learn how to change font color and other properties, this is the book for you. The examples are very non-creative and go into no depth at all.

To follow the examples you are often asked by the author to "copy" a previous exercise, so if u dont follow along u cant pick up somewhere in the middle. In addition so much time is spent telling you how to do such trivial things.

The book does cover alot of topics but none of the topics have enough depth to be very helpful. The examples are poor. It seems to me that this book was written in a quick hurry.

I was on page 200 and was still looking for anything! Then I read about skins and themes and picked up a little, but nothing of substance.

I purchased the "ASP.NET Unleashed" book for version 1.1 and it was very good, with pretty creative examples. When his new version comes out I would recommend that book.

The OReilly series was recommended to me by other developers, but next time I will be alot more cautious. Creative examples and/or some explanation to the feature being explained would be useful, i.e. the author doesnt have to tell me I can use a graphic file of my own choice (for an image control) if I dont want to use his graphic. At times I felt like the author was explaining this text to a child.

There are some good things about this book. One of them is that there are a variety of topics covered; at least that gives you an idea that there might be other topics that you hadn't thought about before.

Having said that, I was only moderately pleased with this book. I think it falls short of the quality and usefullness of other OReilly books, such as "Cascading Style Sheets: A Definitive Guide" by Eric A Meyer. This latter book has to be one of the best written computer books I have read in my 25 year computer career, and has become a standard of quality comparison when reading other comptuer books.

My main gripes about "Programming ASP.NET" are:

Terms are used loosely and repeatedly before defining them. For example, the notion of a Web Application is dimissed early on as something we all "already understand" and then finally given a formal and useful definition at least a dozen chapters after it is first bandied about. This book needs a glossary.

This book does a lot of "telling" without enough "explaining".

For example, when discussing View State, a very important key topic in understanding ASP.NET, the author says "The view status is the state of the pages and all its controls".

Yes, that what View State is. But is that really an explanation? I don't think so. It would have been helpful to show the View State in action using some code snippets and perhaps something like a sequence diagram to help the reader understand the what, how, and when of the whole View State process.

I think the book needs to be more useful to ASP.NET 1.1 users as well as 2.0 users. There are cases where the authors points out the differences but this is not done consistently. During the introduction, that authors do say that their intention is to not worry too much about always pointing out 1.x topics versus 2.x topics. So then why do it at all if you are not going to do it consistently?

Some of the post-example text does not seem to match up with the example itself. Sometimes it seems as if variable names are being invented out of thin air in the explanation text, instead of referring back to the examples. There was one topic I was very eager to understand and after re-reading the that author's example several times, I still couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

I think some important topics are covered poorly or not at all. For example, CSS is really given the brush-off in the book. I only remember one small example of using a style sheet with ASP.NET and it was demonstrated in the tone of "let's use this style sheet to pretty up some fonts". Later, when tables are discussed, the authors note that tables are a primary method for specifying page layout.

What gives? We have been told over the last few years that table layout is defunct and CSS layout is the way to go. Have the authors never heard of using CSS for page layout? Does Microsoft intended to shield developers from CSS in ASP.NET? We'll never know because this important technology is not really addressed in this book.

My advice: flip through this book at the bookstore and look for any nuggets you might find on the spot, but save your money for another book.

My very first comment is to PAY ATTENTION to the dates of the other reviews here! I think there is a problem where Amazon is linking reviews of earlier editions to the 3rd edition. If a review is dated before November 2005, they are not for the 3rd Edition of this book! This is the 3rd Edition covering ASP.NET 2.0 and VisualStudio 2005. A key point is that this book covers only C#. There is NO VB.NET at all in this book.

OK, now that that's out of the way...

I'm always a big fan of O'Reilly books because they are extremely informative, comprehensive and usually present the information in a witty way so you're not just innundated with tables of information. Programming ASP.NET starts off much the same. They start with a brief history of ASP to ASP.NET, give a nice, comprehensive tutorial on VS.NET 2005, then dive into the code.

All of the controls and conventions of ASP.NET are presented in a very easy to follow way with real-word application and great descriptions of what the code is doing - a trademark of O'Reilly books.

But the chapters I was most looking forward to - Chs 9 and 10 on data access - are extremely disappointing. Sharp stylistic differences in both the writing and code make it difficult at times to know what to expect from the next example. This is extremely frustrating given the fact that at the beginning of the book they make a point of saying that the two authors' writing styles have been blended so that us as readers won't be able to tell.

A bigger issue is the number of errors that pop up throughout the book. There are just one or two in the first few chapters, but they become increasingly more common as the book progresses. Again, the data chapters are particularly suspect.

Another level of frustration is the source code. It's available from one of the author's web site, but the code isn't always complete. I was working through one of the database examples and I was getting an error, eventhough I followed the book. So I opened the example in the downloaded source code, but the method I was having issues with was empty.

This book overall has its good points. It has helped me make a transition from classic ASP to ASP.NET, but it has a number of issues that keep me from holding it to the same level of other O'Reilly books.

I find the book to be poorly organized. Further, it makes the worst error a book can make -- to assume the reader already knows the material for which he/she bought the book to learn in the first place. The book comes across as disjointed and does not flow. The example concerning the program developed throughout the course of the book, a bug reporting program, drags on and on and on...very tiresome. The database information I found next to useless and angeringly frustrating to follow, as result of the disjointedness to which I referred earlier, and a great lack of clarity. One concludes upon reading this book that the authors genuinely know their subject, but are frustratingly unable to clearly, concisely, and logically communicate that understanding in a flowing, useful, organized fashion. My advice? Save your money.

Id been away from development for about 3 years and only knew ASP. This book gave me what I needed to design, develop, and deploy a project for HIPAA compliance in a 2 month span.

I have written a lot of ASP and no ASP.NET as of yet. I am not sure how this book will do when I start writing ASP.Net but it reads pretty well. I would have preferred a more concise work but I thought the writing was well done.

I liked that the code was done in both C# and VB.I thought that it allowed the reader moving from ASP to see what (if any) advantages there might be to switching to C# as well as providing the reader with a level of difficulty for C# etc.

I also would have preferred if the code samples on the download link would have been in a Visual Studio project.

All of that being said, I think the writing was very well done and plenty of examples. I love examples.

I would recommend the book to a programmer wanting to learn about ASP.NET.

this book is loaded with unnecessary fluff.
e.g. on page 625: "the VB.NET declaration is identical except for the final semi-colon". gee thanks, but this book is supposed to be about asp.net, not the differences between C# and vb.net.
This book nicely describes the differences between a repeater, datalist and a datagrid.
There is also too much code, and not enough explanation of what's practical and why.
In general, too much filler; it seems to me that the code is formatted in such a way to take up the most about of space. as if it was important to the authors to make it over the 1000 pages mark (which they did, by 8).

I do not recommend this book for people who want more than just a cursory overview of asp.net.

I am a beginner at ASP.NET. I prefer VB for syntax.

I tried reading this text to get my feet wet in ASP.NET but found it was a little overwhelming. This book covers pretty much everything I need to know at this stage, and then a lot more. For that alone, it is a good book.

Also, I love how the book covers C# and VB. Though I prefer VB, it seems many others prefer C#. It's nice to see a book give fair due to both languages.

I think the code samples get pretty long and the code descriptions are too short for my tastes. But many will like the fact that the code samples are not useless - they can be applied in the real world.

I also think that for an O'Reilly book, it reads fairly comfortably. I was able to grasp most of it with reasonable effort. I've read other O'Reilly texts and find that they can be over my head. I was impressed by this one, though. Also, it covers the use of Visual Studio and standard text-editors, which is great.

Overall, I think this book is a good choice for the beginner, but if you're like me, you'll need something to bring you up to this book before reading it. I used ASP.NET for Dummies and neither felt pathetic reading it or that it was completely useless.

So basically:
- I got this book, became a bit overwhelmed
- Got ASP.NET for Dummies, read it
- Re-read this book and enjoyed it

I will keep this book because it is usable enough for a reference as well.

There is a lot of hype around the ability to write .NET oriented code in multiple languages. In reality, the need or desire for a developer to write in multiple languages in ASP.NET will be rare. Thus, negating the benefit of writing books that show tidbits of both languages when providing code examples. It clouds the overall tutorial with information that is often not relevant to what the reader is trying to digest. Learning how to implement one .NET language with ASP.NET is hard enough. Learning two is downright painful. That being said, there is quite a bit of good information contained in Programming ASP.NET even if you do have to weed out items you aren't interested in. Here are a few of my favorites:

Debugging: The authors do a solid job of teaching the reader how to utilize the IDE's tracing and debugging features. They walk you through the whole process step by step providing you with some great screen shots and IDE debug reference charts. This is not the best chapter I've ever seen on utilizing the IDE's debugging features but it is better than most books and certainly sufficient for most developers.

ADO.NET: Many ASP.NET books fall short with this crucial subject. Programming ASP.NET covers all the expected areas such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and Stored Procedures. Plus it focuses specifically on the DataSet object and everything it can do from dynamically constructing data sets to utilizing stored procedures to update data with or without transactions. There is a ton of sample code for syntax training in these chapters.

Managing State: One of the more challenging aspects of normal ASP is managing state. In ASP.NET, you are able to manage state without Session variables. There is a nice section on this topic that covers View State and the State Bag. I'd suggest reviewing this in chapter 6 before writing your first full web site in ASP.NET.

Object Caching: This is probably one of the most beneficial chapters in the book. I got a lot out of learning how to cache pages and actual objects such as datasets. The code examples and explainations thereof were just what I needed. I fully expect this to play a key role in future .NET sites I'll be working on.

Security: Number #1 topic of the day these days. Programming ASP.NET dedicates a pleasantly surprising amount of coverage to this topic. You'll learn various levels of windows authentication and how to make the most of them in .NET. You'll also pick up a few tips on configuring IIS and the web.config file.

All in all, Programming ASP.NET was a good read aside from the lack of coverage on XML and the language combination comments I mentioned above. If you enjoy O'Reilly books and the style they are written in, you'll definitely enjoy this one.

However, if you are a beginner with ASP.NET, don't let the combination of C# and VB.NET code throw you off track. If you stay focused on the aspects of ASP.NET, this book can help you out a great deal.

[...]

This was the first book on ASP.NET I purchased. I'm usually pleased with O'reilly books but this one misses the mark.

A better choice for beginners is Murach's ASP.NET by Anne Prince and Doug Lowe or if your interested in something thicker try Microsoft's Programming ASP.NET by Dino Esposito (an excellent resource).

Also a good resource for datagrids is ASP.NET Data Web Controls by Scott Mitchell.

I'm a profressional web developer, and I have probably a dozen O'Reilly books on my desk. This is the first one that has disappointed me.

1. Including both C# and VB code in a single edition makes the book much fatter than it needs to be, and quite inaccessible. It would have been better to print two editions of the book.

2. Some examples are too lengthy. I tend to find smaller examples more useful than large ones, because they're easier to get running and then adapt to my own purposes. I appreciate that the authors are trying to demonstrate "real world" applications like a Bug Database and a Stock Ticker, but unless you are going to spend hours digging through the code, these sorts of examples are not practical. It would have been better to include more small examples to illustrate key points.

3. No reference section! :(

So, I'm still hunting for a really great ASP.NET book...

Talk about padding the pages! Hey O'Reilly - we don't need to re-print the whole dang piece of code to show a snippet. And have you guys ever heard of drag and drop on the page? Nah - couldn't do that either - let's just reprint the source code instead. It's more impressive that way - a thicker book *must* be better, we can price accordingly *and* it fills the "library".

Utter nonsense.

I was looking for a book that thoroughly taught ASP.NET and took the C# language seriously and not as an afterthought. This book is absolutely perfect. It explains the intrinsics of ASP.NET and its theoretical underpinnings. It also has very good practical information with regard to many of the decisions you will have to make in terms of the tools and different approaches you face when programming in ASP.NET. What I liked most of all was that it has every example in C# which most ASP.NET authors seem to shy away from for some bizarre reason. If you want to learn ASP.NET thoroughly with C# syntax I can recommend no other and I have read quite a few.

As a new programmer, and even newer to .NET and ASP.NET this book is a must have for anyone serious about learning ASP.NET. The book covers every aspect of using ASP.NET, and the examples can be used in real world situtations. You can also find Jesse Liberty featured on http://www.appdev.com courses. What are you waiting for, go get this book!!

As with the first edition of this book, the second edition continues to be the best ASP.NET book available today. This edition has been updated to include information on the 1.1 version of the .NET framework as well as Visual Studio 2003.

Unlike many other ASP.NET books I have seen, you can actually pick this one up and begin writing ASP.NET applications quickly. The book begins with an introduction to the Visual Studio development environment, which is necessary knowledge to be able to effectively write and compile code. This introduction does a very good job quickly describing the most important features of the IDE. For a more thorough introduction to the Visual Studio .NET IDE, pick up a copy of O'Reilly's Mastering Visual Studio .NET.

This book then proceeds to discuss each of the ASP.NET server controls in detail. Examples are provided in both C# and VB.NET, with clear preference given to C#. Some of the more difficult concepts are clearly explained, with enough information provide to satisfy more advanced readers.

Personally, I found many of the highlights of this book to be toward the end, where an excellent section on data access can be found. This has often been a point of contention with me: most applications today have some amount of data access involved. Unfortunately, most .NET books have only a small (and largely inadequate) data access chapter. The data access section in this book is one of the best I have seen. Even if you know a lot about ASP.NET, you'll probably learn a thing or two from the data access section.

The authors also have written an excellent chapter on creating custom controls for applications. There is a very good discussion on creating user controls and custom controls (both of which can be used as re-usable components in web applications).

Like the previous edition, this book doesn't disappoint. This is a must have for ASP.NET developers and an excellent tutorial for individuals trying to get their hands around ASP.NET.

This book is a gold-mine - explaining well the .NET concepts. As an experienced ASP developer, it gave me good background to understand the differences between ASP and ASP.NET. The examples are structured to build on each other and are well thought-out. I had a question about one of the examples and posted it to Jesse Liberty's web site (url included in the book). He answered it right away! Great book!

This is an excellent book. In fact, it's the best ASP.NET book I've seen yet. I did find myself skipping around in it a lot more than reading it cover to cover, but, all in all, it's a great book. I often refer back to it as a reference. Also, the code examples are in both VB.NET and C#.

I am a big fan of O'Reilly titles, however this book is not one of the better ones. The code examples are lengthy and always (unnecessarily) provided in both C# and VB.NET. Some of the more interesting topics like security are glossed over. This is a thick book and I would expect it to include some discussion of Web architecture with .NET, performance issues, and when to use client side processing. The second edition has a fair number of misprints and typos. On the plus side, it gives thorough explanations of web controls and basic processing, and is a good introduction to ASP.NET.

I developed my first .NET project as a consultant the first day the .NET framework was released by Microsoft. I found myself scrambling for a book with helpful examples. A lot of the samples I found on-line and in the first Wrox books did not work. Programming ASP.NET was a real life saver! I still get called back from time-to-time for updates to the .NET site and for other .NET projects. Each time I keep going back to this book as a helpful reference. I disagree with the earlier reviewer, I found it easy to distinguish between the VB and C# examples. I thought it was great that I didn't have to have two separate books for each language. I think the authors have done a great job!

If you know nothing about ASP.NET, it is certain that you will learn something. However, if you are interested in learning how to build a full blown application, you may find that this book fails to provide the detailed examples you are looking for.

To be sure the book starts out with comprehensive examples, but these are for the more simple constructs. Just when you find you are getting to the important subjects - security, forms authentication, configuration, etc. the authors suddenly become extremely vague or lazy. Examples of what I mean? The reader will begin to see much psedo-coding and terse explanations instead of actual examples for things such as posting a form to authenticate a username / password.

I conclude from this that the authors must not have experience building these kinds of full-blown applications and do not know how to fully discuss and educate on these subjects. Either that, or they just got lazy and failed to deliver the goods. Either is unforgivable if you are claiming to cover the materials in the table of contents.

If I could give this book 1.5 stars insted of 2 I would have.

Did it help me? Well, yes, I did learn a few things. Did it provide the information I was seeking when I purchased the book?
NO!! It fails to deliver just when I arrived at the subjects I wanted to learn more fully.

So, to net it out... If you are completely new to ASP.NET, this is an "OK" book to cut your teeth on. If you are looking to inform yourself on the more advanced topics of full-blown application development, this book is a waste of your money. Do not purchase it.

Now I'm off to search for a book written by folks that do know about forms authentication, configuration, security, etc.

This book is by far the most polished, thorough, and wide scoped internet programming book that I've read. It gives an expansive review of all the ASP.net components - their capabilities and events compared to html as well as classic asp. It shows the fundamental advantage of "code-behind"... seperation of presentation level html from c# or vb code. It teaches Visual Studio .net debugging, which I found to be very enlightening, as well as practical. It goes deep into web.config modifications and global.asax session state and application state access. Also, they explain xml and well-formed html standards, regular expressions (briefly), error handling (including custom error page redirection), tracing and trace.adx (ASP.net's event logging util), validation using built-in ASP.net controls, ADO.NET, and I could go on forever. If you're familiar with old ASP coding practices, jumping from TextPad to Explorer constantly to debug, this book will turn you on to much more effecient and speedy techniques using Studio.net. If you are someone who needs to know just about everything about web development using ASP.NET give this book a try.

I recommend this book.

I've been using this book since its first edition as the text of an ASP.NET class I teach for the last two years, after looking over many others. It covers most of the areas on the subject very well. However, I do provide my own supplemental material on a few missing, but common and easy to handle, topics for building more complete web apps, such as HttpCookie and SmtpMail. Still highly recommended!

The second edition was written for ASP.NET 1.x (Visual Studio 2003) and was written in both VB and C3. The new third edition is totally updated for ASP.NET 2.0 and is written in C# to save space as there are so many new features.

Both books are fully supported on my web site (http://www.LibertyAssociates.com) where you will find source code, an errata and a link to a private (free) support forum.

Thank you.

This book is extremely good for beginners. If you have already worked on ASP, you might find this a bit boring at some places. Something thats missing in the book is the explanation of how exactly the ASP.NET works with respect to CLR or the overall .NET framework. But there are some topics like data access using ADO.NET, ADO Data Updates, Data Binding are the best and very easy to understand with out much effort.

I am not going to say this is the worst book I have ever read, because it was useful considering that I didn't know anything about .NET before starting on this book. However, there was just way too much space spent on the calendar control, and on setting up the database. More time and pages should have been spent on actually connnecting and using the data! Yes, stored procedures are essential to writing real apps..but I bought this book to learn ASP.NET...not how to write complex sql stored procedures. And if you are going to spend so much time writing the procedures, then at least build an app worth having them! Overall, this book wasn't bad, but it is very frustrating as a reference. It DOES cover the controls very well, but if you want a real world application example, you will be left in the dark. I am now reading Programming C# by the same author, and it is a great book for learning the language...which is what led me to believe this book was going to be good. This book is worth having on your shelf for the control coverage. (Especially the calendar!) For COMPLETE coverage of how to use ASP.Net, buy something else.

I can't add much to what others have already written in terms of content. What I will say, though, is that Jesse and Dan have done another outstanding job with this book.

There is quit a bit of overlap with Jesse's Programming C#, but the good thing is that you get to see how it works with ASP.NET.

The one thing that I didn't like about this book is the fact that there is both C# and VB code quoted everywhere in the text. I found it a little distracting initially. As I got used to the idea, though, I ignored the VB and found that it was no longer as much of an issue.

I asked Dan about this and he pointed out that it is tough to get seperate C# and VB versions of this kind of book published and that this was the compromise that was reached. I'll deal with it. The content is worth its weight in gold anyway.

I have also had the opportunity of attending two successive user group meeting where Jesse presented the material in a six hour crash course. It was extremely fast-paced, but I'd worked through the book previously so that having it presented was more of a refresher than anything else.

The insight that Jesse and Dan have on the industry as a whole is clearly from years of experience and I can only say that these are two authors who should be mandatory reading on virtually any subject they choose to write on.

Definitely a "must-buy".

This book is very helpful for beginners. There are lot of examples in both VB and C# and builds good understanding about ASP.NET , so I would rank as four stars.