I have not read this book but I looked through it and it looked interesting - the author appears to have an engaging way of communicating - but then I noticed its only done in C#. I can understand producing an advanced text in one language but not a beginners one. As someone struggling to learn Visual Basic I'm not about to pick a text that only has C#.

If you, like me, are focused on Visual Basic I suggest you get one of the many introductory asp.net texts that offer code in both languages.

Based upon the title, 'Step by Step,' you might think that Shepherd's book will actually cover ASP.NET 3.5 in detail, piece by piece.

While it's true that he does this, he does it to very little detail. He also makes numerous assumptions throughout the text, which may have you scratching your head more than you usually would, picking up a new language.

As a general overview, this book excels, but search elsewhere, for example, in Spaanjaars' Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB (Programmer to Programmer), for specifics on how to actually build a site.

Overall, I've given this book 4 stars, of 5, since the information is valuable, as an overview.

My background: I've been working on the Web for approximately a decade, professionally for half of that. I've got background in PHP and ColdFusion, with enough knowledge to read and tweak classic ASP (however, I think classic ASP is ugly).

I've just finished the end of the book and I will say it's not too bad.

A little background about me before my full review, I'm a web developer with a design background, so I've done a lot of front-end design work for clients but I've also worked a bit of the back end with PHP, and Classic ASP. .NET was new to me and never worked with my preferred IDE, (ahem Dreamweaver) past .net 2.0, recently more and more clients are asking for ASP.net / Sharepoint work from me so I've decided to study up on ASP.net.

Strait to the point, the book isn't dry and it does what it says, it walks you thru chapter by chapter explaining every "technical" bit of data regarding ASP.net and "occasionally" telling you something interesting about one of the tools for real world use.

The pros for buying this book is that you get a clear understanding of ASP.net, the history and where it's going, as well as some simple tricks using VS 2008, LINQ, and ASP.net controls and forms, it also has sample code on the disc, and a PDF of the book on the CD for on-screen reference.

My only problem with this book, (like so many other developer books) is that they really don't give real-world scenarios for building a e-commerce site, or a blog, or a contact form for that matter. It's a better starter book than a "for Dummies" or "..in 24 years" but it does the job to get you started using ASP.net.