I am an experienced developer, and used this set to pass the MCPD Web. It should be all anyone really needs.

Everyone is different, by my recommendation is to use the books only for reference. Take the tests on the disk. Then for the questions you get wrong or find yourself guessing - look up the topic. Study for your weaknesses, otherwise anyone with experience working with this stuff is going to be rehashing everything they already know.

I read people complain about how the books don't cover everything, and am at a loss to know what they could be talking about. If you know everything contained in the books or even possess about 85% of that knowledge, then there really is no way you can fail the tests.

Hey, you may not be going to go take the tests, but at the least find some time (if you can) and read these books.

I am currently trying to find time to get through these books. While I know a fairly good amount of concepts, I want to be polished and complete to make my job much easier and increase my free time at home because of that. That leads to why you would want to read these books.

These books explain things in a very straight forward manor. They at least in my opinion, side-step any jibberish and tell you the basic "why" for a lot of things. I feel that the author did a pretty decent job covering the subject in each book.

Also, if you notice that most programming books typically use a smaller font, or just so much information or so much bold or what not, that your mind is just trying to process the formatting of one page. What I like about this book is Space. There is larger text and space. Makes you really focus in and read carefully page by page.

Anyway, definitely decent books in my opinion here.

I'm currently studying to get my certified professional developer degree. Its a good deal and it comes with everything i need for the web developer certification.

I'm currently studying to get my certified professional developer degree. Its a good deal and it comes with everything i need for the web developer certification.

Very helpful for taking Microsoft exam. I have passed successfully due to these books. But experience is still necessary.

Unfortunately, there really isn't much material out there that covers the MCPD certifications. In fact, based on my brief search, this was the only book that covered it. So it was either get this book or just go off the list of material posted on the Microsoft website. The book does provide three 15% off vouchers and a program of test questions. And for that, it gets the +2 stars.

After that, the material is pretty weak. It's written as-is (kinda ben stein-ish) and the code is confusing to read. I often times have to look at the MSDN equivalent material to get a better understanding of what the author was really trying to say and/or code. But again, what are you going to do? The list that microsoft presents on their certifications page is too vague, you need direction.

You're going to definately need more material to look through outside of what's in the book, but it's a good place to build from. So far I have just taken 1 out of the 3 tests, but I passed on my first time. If you were to use the book as a guide, shouldn't be a problem to do the same.

Reading these books, I find them to be good resources for preparing for the exams, but I know that they will not become the trusted dog-eared references that I would have hoped them to be. Useful content is sparse; a lot of text seems to be wrapped up in the presentation of the material and it leaves it a little verbose. Furthermore, the books are badly edited and I find myself distracted by the flagrant mistakes that one can find every couple of pages. The mistakes do not seem to be so bad, however, that one cannot easily discover the error and compensate; they are also seldom technical in origin, though the (more often) grammatical mistakes or the (occasional) omitted negation *could* lead one to misconstrue the meaning of a particular passage.

I have been exceptionally upset on the occasion when I discovered an obvious case of text pasted from another section of the book that had not been properly modified for the new context, and so, badly referred to the old context. This is just careless.

Aside from this, the material is otherwise very clear and very simply put.

I found these books very helpful. Most of the topics are very well explained and are related to the exam.

To international buyers: I've ordered this Kit twice and i didn't receive yet. I wish i could review this product.
If you need something from Amazon with urgency, it is a risky business.

To international buyers: I've ordered this Kit twice and i didn't receive yet. I wish i could review this product.
If you need something from Amazon with urgency, it is a risky business.