This must be the tedious programming book ever. It's DULL as hell and labourious to work thru. If you are looking to UNDERSTAND - why this?, why that? - than get another book. All these people giving this parrot fashion tutored book 5 stars must those loony computer science nerds who propably have life now the internet is here!

The book is black and white and "lifeless" and tedious - just like one other wrox book I have on VB Datasets.

LEARN you will not - but if your want a DICTATOR to tell you how to go from step one to another - WITHOUT understanding - then this is the book for you, not a thinking developers book. This guys mates must have given it all those good reviews. Sorry but I won't back a dead horse - regardless of what the crowd claims.

The book is good, except if you skip some pages or chapters. The reason is that all examples refer to a big project the book keeps building from the first page till the last one. So, if you decide to skim a chapter about something you already know a little bit, in the next chapter you will have problems in understanding the code. I personally prefer books that give examples that are independent. In this case, you can buy the book, open chapter 4 (for example), and see a little peace of code that does not belong to a huge project developed along the book.
If you feel ok about books with all examples related to a big project, buy the book cause it's certainly a good reading.

---

Mr. Spaanjaars kindly reminded me that the book comes with complete source code for each chapter separately. So, the only problem I had found in the text actually does not exist. For this reason, I think the book deserves 5 stars.

I am or was a PHP developer. My employer asked me to move over to the .NET Framework recently. I was at a lost whether to learn C# or VB. This book shows in both language how to do exactly the same thing. Not only did I learn my chosen language, I also learn the other. AS I was going through the book when I have a question about the subject, Imar addressed it in the next paragraph. The author understands the questions the reader is thinking about and explained it short concise sentences. Excellent book to work with Visual Studio Express.

I call this an excellent Beginning series book. I don't mean to say it is only for beginners. I've found a number of useful ideas in this book and I'm only in Chapter 13, Linq. I initially started this book because I wished to get into web development using C# (my primary background has been VB and classic ASP). I've found this book to good for meeting my initial goal and it has also helped strengthen my grasp of VB as well as improve my knowledge of html and css. It's a good book to have in my programming toolkit for future reference, also.
I have the newest edition for Visual Studio 2010 on order. I expect it will be a good one to have to get me more prepared to use VS 2010 in C# and VB.

As I write, this, I'm about 150 pages into the book. And so far, I'd rate the book as very good to excellent.

I got my first programming job back in 1991, and I've worked with a variety of languages. I currently work as a contract programmer. Unfortunately, one of my more recent contracts was with a company that was still using VB6...and that contract lasted 3 years. I don't have a lot of free time, so during that three years, my skill set began to stagnate a bit. Last year, I worked a new contract, and had to make my first leap into the .Net world. Because I have a solid background in programming fundamentals, I was able to make that leap...but there were definite gaps in my knowledge; which is why I picked up a beginning programming book.

So far, I've only learned a handful of things, but they are definitely useful things. For example, I learned where the support in the Visual Studio 2008 IDE is for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)...I'd been coding them by hand (taking advantage of intellisense), and will continue to do so to a point...but the features that allow you to promote a style from a page-level to an external stylesheet was a great find! The explanation of ViewState and an explanation on how to control whether or not the controls you use in your website will use it was information I was not previously aware of. Looking a little ahead, I'm optimistic about the information I'm going to get regarding using "namespaces" (another concept I only have a rudimentary knowledge of, and quite frankly limited understanding of how to best take advantage of).

Now, given my level of experience and such, my expectations for this book are probably different than those of some of the other people who have reviewed the book. I don't expect this book to teach me every little nuance about HTML or XHTML. I also don't expect it to teach me everything there is to know about VB.net or C#.net. The book does provide references to other sources for that material. Instead, it focuses on providing a basic understanding of these things -- just enough to get you started with creating your own websites...which is all I'd expect from an introductory book.

This is a splendid book for the adventurous developer who's not afraid of tackling a big tome packed with most of what is needed to build a real-world data-driven web application using Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 and Sql Server 2005 Express Editions, which are freely downloadable from the Microsoft web site.

Although the Author introduces some html and CSS coding, I'd recommend using this book with that knowledge already under your belt.
Apart from this, the learning approach here is really a step by step one, starting with detailed instructions on how to install and customise the
required software, and through 18 chapters gradually paying close attention to such things as how the Microsoft framework operates behind the scenes
(in extremely clear language), how to apply CSS styles, themes and skins, how to use web server and user controls, how to program in both Visual Basic.Net and Visual C# (the examples in the book are presented in both programming languages), how to make use of navigation controls, how to validate user input, database access using both the SqlDataSource and the LinqDataSource
(which gives the opportunity for an introduction of Linq programming language), how to implement security, how to debug the web application and even emailing the web administrator concerning bugs and errors, 'exceptions', eventually occurring during the running of the application, and lastly how to deploy the web application and the database. Finally, two Appendices close the big volume, one providing the answers to the exercises proposed at the end of each chapter, and the other, extremely useful one, clearly and practically guiding the user to configure Sql Server Express when it comes to deploying the web application from the local machine to a live production server.

All of the above is presented in practical terms: there's an 'how-to' tutorial and a subsequent 'how-it-works' explanation. This pattern is followed both with regard to several peripheral demos which are aimed at illustrating specific points, and with regard to the main web application that is built throughout the book, a fantastic music-oriented community-type web application, Planet Wrox,
which is available for viewing on the web.
One thing that I've massively appreciated from a didactical point of view is in ch.14: Imar proposes a simple but extremely effective exercise, which clearly illustrates how the life-cycle of the web form and its controls work, that is, to which events they do give rise so that the novice developer begins to understand how to hook up to them to make the application behave as she intends to.

My only critical note in relation to this book concerns Imar Spaanjaar's references to other Wrox publications, including his own, in order
to tackle a development problem on a few occasions where a simple, unexpensive explanation might have sufficed. This is not to say that the books he refers to are not worthy of reference, on the contrary; but that most of the times this happens, the other books he mentions are way above the level of expertise at which the present work is targeted. Briefly, in my opinion the Author would have done better either to offer the solution there and then in terms easily accessible to the beginner, as he's certainly capable of doing, or to provide the necessary tools so that the beginner might appropriately make the jump to advanced texts.

To conclude, I warmly recommend Imar Spaanjaar's book as a must-have for all budding web developers who wish a pain-free, exciting full-immersion in the great world of .Net development, and invite everybody to keep an eye on the Author's forthcoming work on beginning Asp.Net 4.0.

This book is absolutely phenomenal. With all the complicated books on programming out there, it is easy to become disillusioned and to believe that maybe all of this is just not for you. NOT SO! This book is great because it builds you from the ground up. And not with just a bunch of meaningless theory, either! It starts you into developing fully functional web pages right away and is example-driven rather than being drivel-driven.

Can't recommend this book enough, especially to beginners who want to learn ASP.NET in C#, Visual Basic, or both!

I tried ploughing through this book as a tutorial but found it to be hard work so I gave up after the first hundred pages or so. It seemed like hard work for a 'Beginning' book and although it is a thick book I think the information it covers is fairly basic with lots of mentions of how you should buy the next book and a lot of 'do this, then do this' without enough explanation. As always with Wrox books I am always a bit disappointed with the general production quality of the book such as the cheap paper, ugly typefaces, lack of editing, poor index etc.

Instead I started reading the Sitepoint ASP.NET book and found it refreshingly shorter, more methodical and more user-friendly while also going into more detail.

I also have the Pro ASP.NET (Apress) book and I think that is a really good 'professional' book and covers a lot of information, but the Sitepoint book is much better as a tutorial if you are completely new to ASP.NET.

I think that as a beginner book this book is too long-winded and too dry and as a professional book, it isn't comprehensive enough.

I can't comment too much on this book because I tried ploughing through it as a tutorial but found it to be hard work so I gave up after the first hundred pages or so. It seemed like hard work for a 'Beginning' book and although it is a thick book I think the information it covers is fairly basic with lots of mentions of how you should buy the next book and a lot of 'do this, then do this' without enough explanation. Unfortunately as always with Wrox books I am always a bit disappointed with the general production quality of the book such as the cheap paper, ugly typefaces, lack of editing, poor index etc. I also tried reading Pro ASP.NET (Apress) and while it might be a good reference book, I found it pretty dry as a tutorial.

After I gave up I started reading the Sitepoint ASP.NET book and found it refreshingly much shorter (only around 400 pages when you exclude the Appendices) while actually going into a lot of detail. Maybe this will be a good book to come back to but as a tutorial I found it a bit dry.

I'll keep this short - this is just a great book! I read the whole thing and I wanted more!

The practices and examples you do are... practical - you can implement them right away. When you're done the chapters, you firmly know what you're doing. Web support is great - the author himself checks the forums. Very good book!!!

Book absolutely as described. Very fast service - very pleased with transaction. Thanks

If you want to learn and understand ASP.NET DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. Here is how the book is laid out: Enter some code behind, now enter the following markup, and finally here is a paragraph (or two) of what just happened. There are Wrox plugs all throughout this book. They go something like this: "...and if you need to know more (which you will trust me) please buy Professional ASP.NET 3.5, published by Wrox" -or- "To understand what just happened check out Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax" etc., etc., ad nauseum. Also, the index is horrible, I'll generally forgive a poorly written tech book if it has a usable index.

Who are these people giving this dismal book such rave reviews?

First I want to congratulate Imar on his work. It's not enough to be thorough, Imar is thoughtful and insightful. Imar thought of everything, and all the examples work right out of the book. His installation of MVS was exactly like mine, so all the screen shots were identical, and every time the book said to click on a menu option or toolbar option it was there just as he said. In other words, no hunting for functionality inside studio.

I have been programming since I was 11 years old. Taught myself basic, and before I was 20 I was writing games and utilities in 6809 assembly. Became a professional programmer writing C, C++, and VB. Then a SQL DBA for the last decade. Learned miscellaneous other languages along the way. My stack of books reaches the ceiling. But since I became a DBA in 1999 I have mostly left behind web languages, but now I'm making a website.

This book is the best computer book I ever owned, period. As I said, everything works. I had started with two other books before this one, but had a lot of trouble. By the time I finished this book I had a good understanding of C# integrated with CSS and SQL Server, and best of all I had a good working website that I could use as a template.

5 Stars

Victor Del Prete

if you know c# or vb.net and you want to learn something about ASP.Net, i can recommend. However, this book doesn't teach fishing; it just teachs eating fish. You can create website but i thing you cannot learn web application programming.

This book is a great tool for anyone who wants to learn the real ASP.NET and not just the drag and drop stuff. I didn't know anything about web stuff but thanks to this book, I'm already getting websites up and running. Although it is helpful if the user is somehow familiar with a programming language such as VB.NET or C#, it is not necessary if you follow the book step by step. Thanks for a great job Imar.

I bought this book because I wanted to tech some friends how to develop in C# to build websites, overall this book did the trick. It's laid out well and takes you through the process of building a website using VB or C#. What I didn't think was so great is what it considers "Beginner" When you're learning a language to help you solve a problem (in this case building a site) you should learn as much as possible about the language not just snippets here and there. This creates a world of developers that don't completely understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. To the authors credit visual studio can be used as a push/drag drop without thought tool but I think more foundation (besides the starting chapters) will help a future developer to not only build a website but to also trigger imagination and thought into what they are doing. Overall this is a good book but should be combined with a book like Oreily Learning C# (or VB)

I love this book. The most outstanding feature is that the author anticipates every mistake or problem that you could possibly have while working through the exercises and answers those questions for you immediately. Every time I pause in my reading and think "I wonder why that works like that?", invariably the answer is in the next line or two. This is an outstanding book with wonderful examples, great source code and an easy to understand writing style that answers every novice or intermediate level programmer question that springs to mind while working through the book.

This book is written as if the instructor is sitting beside you. He gives a nice summary and then gives examples that are easy to follow. The examples are also spelled out to a "T". I am currently on chapter 5 and still have not stopped reading and said... "WHAT!" as I have in some Microsoft Step By Step or Dietel books.

Bottom Line: This is an excellent book and very helpful. It is my personal favorite ASP book and will check out other Wrox publications.

A great way to get started with the ASP.NET framework. Useful at home and work. Well thought out, well written. Informative without being overbearing.

This book on ASP.NET 3.5, VB.NET and C# is very good. I have about 5 other books on ASP.NET 3.5 and VB.NET but this is the best. Another good book in this area is Build Your Own ASP.NET 3.5 Web Site Using C# and VB, 3rd Ed. by Sitepoint.

This book is very good because it has -both- beginning and intermediate ASP.NET 3.5. Later I purchased Professional ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB but have used it only a few times for reference. Spaanjaars's book works about 95% of the time for me. One problem we often find with Beginning books is that they do not help us transition into more complex programming and design. This book includes plenty of intermediate code and theory to provide most of what I need. This book is 5 stars, with the article on SQL Server and 4 ½ without it.

The only major weakness I found was that there was not a good description of using ASP.NET 3.5 and VB with SQL Server 2005. I Emailed Spaanjaars and he gave me a link to the needed article.

Since I have over 7 years experience in VB, I like the use of VB.NET in this book. It seems that most of the books on ASP.NET 3.5 do Not use VB.

Since other reviews have talked about the chapters I will not re-work their descriptions. Chapters 1 and 2 give enough basic info to get you started in ASP.NET 3.5. The other chapters cover all the needed areas including: designing Web pages; working with ASP.NET 3.5 controls; navigation; databases; LINQ; security; exception handling and debugging; and deploying your Web site.

I was able to get through the book, programming in most of its samples and getting exposure to what ASP.NET can do. It exposes you to what ASP.NET does, for certain. What it does NOT do, however, is give you a strong basis for retaining what you're being taught. The introduction to every subject feels so rapid that after I was finished with the book and thought about what I would do to make my own site, I felt lost. ASP.NET does so many things automatically with its many data controls and LINQ methodology, it actually gets in the way of building a site that your code has tighter control over.

In short, this book is good for a fast tour of ASP.NET. You're going to need more sources, however, and a much better reference, if you plan to use it to develop anything custom.

This book was my only introduction to ASP.NET. I didn't learn about ASP.NET from any other source prior to this book. I'm a classic era programmer that usually picked up new languages very quickly (including ASP). ASP.NET is a very different animal.

I was able to get through the book, programming in most of its samples and getting exposure to what ASP.NET can do. It exposes you to what ASP.NET does, for certain. What it does NOT do, however, is give you a strong basis for retaining what you're being taught. The introduction to every subject feels so rapid that after I was finished with the book and thought about what I would do to make my own site, I felt lost. ASP.NET does so many things so automatically, it actually gets in the way.

In short, this book is good for a fast tour of ASP.NET. You're going to need more sources, however, and a much better reference, if you plan to use it to develop anything custom.

This book was my only introduction to ASP.NET. I didn't learn about ASP.NET from any other source prior to this book. I'm a classic era programmer that usually picked up new languages very quickly (including ASP). ASP.NET is a very different animal.

this book was my textbook for an ASP.NET class I took. It provides good exercises and covers a lot of topics. It's excellent for showing you how to do something and walks you through, but it can lack on explaining. I'll be holding on to it for future reference.

Asp.net is not easy. In fact, I, a laymen website developer - have found it incredibly complex - which is why I thank God for Imar's book. This book is not an easy either. Spanjaars aims high in his effort to introduce as much material as possible and this book is filled with information.

What saves it from being overwhelming for rank beginners such as myself is that it is exceptionally well organized and well-written. For this kind of complex material I need several books and I have half a shelf full of asp.net books. Others I turned to because they were easier or because they are stronger in one area or another.

This is the book, though, that I keep returning to again and again because there's just so much in here and it's so well explained. I love how he has both C# and VB examples as well. It is my core asp.net book and right now it's so bedraggled I need a new copy. I hope Imar will keep his pen wet and keep writing texts.

This is not an easy book. Spanjaars aims high in his effort to introduce as much material as possible; this book is filled with information. What saves it from being overwhelming for rank beginners such as myself is that it is exceptionally well organized and well-written. For this kind of complex material I need several books and I have half a shelf full of asp.net books. Others I turned to because they were easier or because they are stronger in one area or another - Spanjaars I keep returning to again and again because there's just so much in here and its so well explained. I love how he has both C# and VB examples as well. It is my core reference in this area

I have been real busy since I have purchased the book so basically I have just been able to scan through parts of the book. What I have been able to read is very easy to understand with easy to follow examples. The perfect book for a beginner!! I also love that the examples are written in both c# and vb!

This is the .NET book by which all others should be measured. It is also the Wrox book by which all other Wrox books should be measured, given how hit-and-completely-miss they can be.

I had some background in Classic ASP and JSP development, but ASP.NET was something I had put off for years. It just seemed so convoluted, messy, and at times seemingly arbitrary. While I still harbor some negative feelings towards certain aspects and inconsistencies of the .NET framework, I at least now understand it far better than before and can develop functional web apps with it.

The brilliant thing about this book is that it assumes almost nothing of the reader. While having some previous experience would help, the book does a great job in the early chapters of walking the reader through very fundamental concepts such as loops and basic HTML...even cascading stylesheets. I was pretty bored over the first couple of chapters, and completely skipped the stylesheet stuff, but I am extremely appreciative of the effort and knowing that if there are gaps in my knowledge, it's probably covered somewhere in this book. By midway through the book, you're already learning the fundamentals of AJAX and web services...and yet since the approach is very much "hand holding" every step of the way, by the time you get there it doesn't seem at all intimidating.

As others have noted, a really cool bonus is that everything is presented in VB as well as C# code, and neither is treated as an afterthought. So while my Classic ASP background meant primarily working with VB syntax, I used this book to gain familiarity with the C# language, effectively killing two birds with one stone.

Note that while this could be used as a reference book, it's greatest value lies in treating it as a instructional textbook/workbook. Work your way through it. Then buy a big scary reference book to back you up.

I would argue that if you can grasp everything in this book and apply it, you will be far beyond a "beginner". In my opinion this book should be the basis for any formal ASP.NET intro course.

**I have found one error in the book so far. In the "Creating a Base Page" exercise on page 206, you must first add "Title = Untitled Page" to the "<%@ Page" line at the beginning of login.aspx. Otherwise step 4 will not work. This is due to a change in the service pack Microsoft released since this book was published (originally said code was added by default when you created a new aspx page).

I really wish this would have been my first ASP.NET book. Other books basically amounted to me wasting my time. In fact, I wish I had found a book of this quality for most of my other programming languages. I can't recommend it enough for the beginner to the world of ASP.NET. This book is not an end-all-be-all of ASP.NET but more of a primer to get you started. It is clear, usually concise, and has relatively few errors. The author focused on the most important aspects of ASP.NET and didn't get bogged down in details on features that are rarely used. It will require a little bit of basic programming background to truly understand all of the concepts presented in the book, but nothing the average IT professional couldn't pick up.

I found this book to be refreshingly useful compared to the vast majority of ASP.NET instructional materials. I come from a background of PHP, Linux, C, Lua, and classic ASP programming, so the jump to ASP.NET has been painful at my new job. My feeling about the half dozen ASP.NET books that I tried first is downright hostile and I was starting to blame ASP.NET for my productivity issues. Getting quality instruction for ASP.NET for the .NET newbie is very difficult. The majority of the "how-to" books I tried (which were provided by my employer) spend a lot of time cheer leading for Microsoft and telling the reader WHY he or she should be head-over-heels in love with ASP.NET because it can make "rich" web applications but they did an amazingly poor job of actually showing the reader HOW to use this complex technology to make their lives easier.

This book is not one of those books. The first chapter is a bit dull, especially if you are comfortable with programming or web design in general. Once you hit the second chapter the book starts giving concrete examples, quality screen shots, and functional source code examples in both C# and Visual Basic. Best of all, the book does a pretty decent job of explaining how things work after you work through the exercises. In fact, the first 100 pages of this book gave me more valuable information on ASP.NET than three or four other books combined.

Before this book, I spent a lot of time cursing Microsoft and the horrible tentacled monster called ASP.NET that was thrust upon me. This book has managed to give me practical knowledge about the technology I was using and I went from hating ASP.NET to actually liking some parts of it.

Having been SO disappointed with most computer books, I'm happy to have found this one. This author does it "just right," with a tutorial style that flows well and provides a continuous learning experience.

Things I liked:

* The examples all work, are useful, and not tedious or trivial. You can either download them from the Wrox web site or type them in yourself (which is what I did, to reinforce the learning experience).
* The author's style is matter-of-fact, without any of the gratuitous silly humor or remarks that are so prevalent in books of this type.
* No space is wasted on describing the history of computing or trying to appeal to someone who has never used a computer before. The author doesn't assume you are a deep expert, nor does he gloss over things that you really DO need to know. Again, it's just right.
* There is the right amount of verbiage - enough to explain what's going on, but not so much that you have to read through many pages of dense text. The typical flow is a brief explanation of a new topic, followed by a quick exercise using Visual Web Developer. This really kept me moving along and gave me a feeling of continuous learning.
* As he introduces you to new things such as features of Visual Web Developer 2008, he will briefly describe some of the other options and features that you notice but don't need at the moment - another thing that appealed to my style of learning.

About the only complaint I have is that the author didn't find a way for me to learn all the material in this book in just a few hours, which, given the breadth of what one needs to know about ASP.NET, would have been impossible!

Overall this is a really solid book written by someone who clearly understands the topic, has actually used the tools he describes, and knows how to teach others how to use these things. I'm very satisfied.

This book is absolutely superb, it's one of the best coding books I have ever read.

Each topic in the book is presented in a fashion where the author first explains 'How It Works', followed by 'Try it Out' where there are step by step instructions that guide you through the process. The code is in BOTH vb.net and C#, and the code is thoroughly explained- I consider myself a fairly experienced VB.net/C# programmer and I actually learned a few things.

If you are looking to get into ASP.net, this is your book! You will NOT be disappointed.

I am a VB.net Windows Forms developer who was looking to get into web development using ASP.NET 3.5. This book was a great find. Every exercise worked as printed, except for where I fat-fingered the code. I found the format of each exercise building on the previous exercises to be very intuitive. Plus, at the end of the book, I had a fully functional website with features I know I will use in future projects. I particularly found the chapter on the built-in Login controls and roles/security to be very informative.

This is the first book that I read on ASP.NET so perhaps my experience is limited, but I found the book well-written and very helpful. I spent a couple of weeks reading the book and working through the examples building the Planet Wrox website. Now I intend to use the book as a reference while I build my first web site at work.

In working through the book, I typed most of the code myself, but I appreciated having the source code available on the Wrox website. (Be sure to check out the Wrox site for errata as well.) I especially appreciated having the HTML source code, as my HTML and JavaScript skills were quite rusty. I was able to follow the examples, though.

I found it helpful that the code examples are in both Visual Basic and C# because at work I am switching from VB to C#. Readers who are already fluent in both languages may find the examples redundant, but there isn't a lot of code so there isn't much extra bulk.

It is appropriate that this book has "Beginning" in the title, as ASP.NET is a vast subject and no one book can cover it all. At several places in the text Mr. Spaanjaars makes recommendations for further reading, and I am already following his recommendations. I also appreciate the author's website with its articles and forum. This will not be the last ASP.NET book that I read, but it proved to be a very good first choice.

The book was exactly as described. Is in great condition and saved me a bunch of money instead of buying it through my campus bookstore. Delivery was fast. Will order from them again.

Imar is a very smart guy and beginners have a lot to learn from him. Thankfully, he wrote this book to teach those learning ASP.NET the foundations of the framework.

I gave it to some of my co-workers to read, and they thought the book was very good. It has gotten them up to speed very quickly on ASP.NET.

The first couple of chapters might be boring, but the remainder of this text book is quite impressive for an ASP.net beginner like me! The author has a great way of sharing his knowledge in a very clear manner. I've read half of the book already, and i would say I learned a lot and like the other reader pointed out, you'll never dread the word "web programming" again with this book. Highly recommended for beginner/intermediate readers!

I give this book full set of stars because of the tremendous effort made by the author to simplify the process.
My only problem with this book is.

It is too slow as to the way it explains the subjects.
The author directs you to download the example files but then totally crawls when it comes to "using the project files."
The book in packed with information but it should have been written for the "SLOWSKIES" you know, the turtles in the Comcast commercials.

The book just crawls and crawls and crawls but overall if you have really strong coffee and patients, you might get through.

Marc

Over the years I have read over 50 programming books. This easily ranks as one of the best. I am now on page 193 - and have made underlinings or notes on almost every page. First of all, it might be relevant to know that my background is classic ASP - but it's been a few years since I worked with it. Overall, the book flows beautifully and logically. Not only does the overall structure make sense, but the actual detail explanations are crystal clear. This book takes the reader on a logical course to understand all the key aspects of creating ASP.NET web sites (including key details of the Visual Web Developer interface). I am continually amazed at the flow, and the clear explanations of all relevant details. Additionally, I have posted a number of questions on the wrox forum website (look for the one that deals specifically with this book) and Imar - the author - quickly and thoroughly answered all my questions. My thanks to Imar for this work of outstanding quality - a truly helpful addition to the ASP community.

This is the best programming book I have read thus far and I am reading 4 right now! I have found the author himself to be extremely helpful at p2p.wrox.com and quick to answer my few hang-ups during my reading. Note that the only negative reviews at the time of this writing are from readers who have not gotten [much] farther than the first chapter, but the book is 18 chapters long! There are indeed a few spelling and other textual errors but that is to be expected in some degree of almost any book, and none of them have impacted the technical aspect or effectiveness of this book.

If you want to get a good grasp on the asp.net framework, buy this book... and read it!

I have been programming in VB.NET and C# for several years and have just recently needed to write a program in ASP. I bought this book figuring it would get me started and i could look up the more complicated stuff online. I was able to read the book in 2 days and feel like I have a solid grasp of what I am doing. Everything is explained well, the examples are great, always written in both languages, and the results are easily seen (some books have examples where the results aren't seen for several chapters). I am actually excited to write the program now and have been looking for other projects that I can do in ASP.NET.

I have done no sort of programming before- no C, Java, Visual Basic etc...nothing, nada.
And this book still taught me how to do excellent web pages.
If a complete beginner like me can use this book successfully so can anyone else.

This is one of the best instructional books I have ever used, period, regardless of subject, Spaanjaars can both write and teach.
Throughout my six years at university I have constantly been reminded of how rare this combination of skill is.

The exercises are not accumulated together at the end of each chapter, instead they appear throughout each chapter.
You can decide for yourself whether you want to go with VB or C#, or both, all the coding is explained as you go.

Would you benefits from knowing HTML, C# or VB prior to this book? Certainly, you would probably learn quicker, but it is not a prerequisite.

I have only done a weeks worth of HTML and no other sort of programming - no C, Java, Visual Basic etc...nothing, nada.
And this book still taught me how to do excellent web pages.
If a complete beginner like me can use this book successfully so can anyone else.

This is one of the best instructional books I have ever used, period, regardless of subject, Spaanjaars can both write and teach.
Throughout my six years at university I have constantly been reminded of how rare this combination of skill is.

The exercises are not accumulated together at the end of each chapter, instead they appear throughout each chapter.
You can decide for yourself whether you want to go with VB or C#, or both, all the coding is explained as you go.

Would you benefits from knowing HTML, C# or VB prior to this book? Certainly, you would probably learn quicker, but it is not a prerequisite.

I have worked for many years as a C (C++) programmer, and routinely access various databases (Access, SQL Server, mySQL) using MFC code. I decided at long last to go to the Internet with my quite involved linguistic software, and have messed around when I had spare time for several months not really getting it to work. The two skills I felt like I really needed to be up and running were (1) the ability to access databases securely and reliably from a Web site (logins, etc.), and (2) the ability to call dlls (Web Services) from a Web site. Going into this book, I still had no idea what the corollary of a dll or COM object was. And I still don't know whether I have to rewrite my C++ dlls in C# to get them to work. The book hints that I might not have to. But at least if I am willing to rewrite all 45,000 lines of C++ code in C#, I know how to do what I want to do in principle, and that feels very different from where I was at before.

Part of the reason that I'm further along now is that I was using ASP.NET 2.0. Version 3.5 has added so many widgets to resolve common problems that it really feels to me from the perspective of a rank beginner like an entirely different beast, though undoubtedly under the hood, it's essentially the same. For example, the beginning ASP.NET 2.0 book I read devoted a whole chapter to Request and Response. There are just a couple references to them in this book, and they're not even mentioned in the index. Version 3.5 has been so structured that you apparently don't need to know even these very basic details. I feel a little like I felt when the event loop disappeared into the bowels of the GUI, never to be referred to again. "Can I trust Microsoft to handle that? Can I just go my merry way writing only event handlers?" It's still too soon to tell for certain, but probably I'll be okay.

This is not a reference book. It wasn't helpful in figuring out how to add a background image to my master page, and having read it once, I'm now reading it again cover to cover and taking notes to create the reference I need, because I don't even remotely remember it all. And I will need to read the advanced book to get where I want to be.

Instead of a reference, you build a fully functional Web site throughout the course of the book. An exercise in chapter 11 may refer to a page you built in Chapter 4, so you absolutely have to follow the entire book from start to finish or you'll be lost. I do think that this is the best approach to learning ASP.NET 3.5, because I really feel like if I pay attention, I can now write a full fledged Web site. I can't see any other way to cover (in 700 pages) ASP.NET controls, user controls, themes, style sheets, skins, master pages, basic C#, debugging, code behind files, Web services, databases, LINQ, security, base pages, validation, AJAX and deployment... to mention most of the biggies. None of these were even mentioned in my ASP.NET 2.0 books, mostly because they didn't exist, I expect. They are all there is to ASP.NET 3.5. You can get whole books on most of these technologies, but I really feel Spaanjaars gives you a serviceable introduction to each of them.

In summary, this is the first beginning text on dynamic database driven Web sites that got me past that psychological barrier and convinced me that I am going to be able to migrate my complicated life to the Internet. The text is clear and very well organized. And there are precious few errors. (I submitted most of the typos a previous reviewer complained about, because I liked the book so much I wanted it to be perfect. Sorry for the unintended effect Imar.)

Have worked with ASP.NET 2.0 a bit over the past year or so. Excellent book for my level. Imar covered all of the questions I encountered as I made my way through the material. Examples were understandable and quick to implement. Very satisfied.

I have looked at several ASP.NET books but this particular one seems to be the best so far. The chronology of the book and the Try It Out sections are great. They force to learn by doing the hands on exercises. The book makes learning the ASP.NET subject very easy. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn the subject matter. The negative reviews that some people have levied on this book are unfounded. You can't base your opinion by reading one chapter. This book would also be a great reference material.
Good Luck.

Although many liked this book, it did not resonate with me. I wound up only getting through the first chapter or so, but maybe book picks up.

Not even 50 pages into the book, the author has made at least two easily spotted spelling errors as well as launching into using jargon many beginners wouldn't know shortly before spending half a page walking someone slowly through changing a single Windows display option. If you're looking for a professionaly written book, I would not recommend this one. Checking the short list of errata on the website, and these errors are not even listed...

It makes a beginner, a professional web developer step by step. Thanks to Imar for that structured work.

I am using this text as the basis for a university-level business web application development course. It is a better introduction to ASP.NET 3.5 than any textbook I have found. The chapters unfold logically, each new skill building on the last. The prose is clear and relaxed. The code examples are correct and clearly presented. Imar has used the same organization and logic skills needed for good programming to produce an excellent book!

This is a good hands-on tutorial. The author will walk you through an operation, and then explain how it works. I like that approach.

The online resources provided to accompany the book have been very helpful to me. When you start working through a new chapter, you might find it a good idea to start with the official source code provided for the previous one, instead of relying on the results of your own work, especially if you skip some of the exercises.

There is an online forum for the book, and the author and the editor do a great job of answering questions.

To fully benefit from the code-intensive examples in the book, you may want to study C# or VB in its own right as well. If you have no knowledge of programming languages at all, you might find the book a little hard to understand.

The book could benefit from some more editing, which is why I have only given it four stars. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn ASP.NET 3.5.

Recieved book in excellent condition! The book is very organized and very constructive in teaching me what I need to learn in a step-by-step manner. I very much recommend this book!