I have no experience with Visual Basic but I have taken a few classes in C. Overall the book is a good read, finished it in a week and the exercises are very productive. I would have like for there to be a 2nd part just on labs alone.

I bought this new book which I got it for $4 less than any other place including internet and book stores. I received the book on time and as I expected. Started reading and enjoying it...

I bought this new book which I got it for $4 less than any other place including internet and book stores. I received the book on time and as I expected. Started reading and enjoying it...

The book is well structured to cover the exam topics. It does, however, omit certain details in some topics which would be unclear from just the book alone if I didn't already know them or didn't find some better explanations elsewhere online. You'll need some additional resource, including .NET class library online reference and online tutorials to fully understand certain topics.

I've not finished reading this book yet, nor have I completed all exercises. Already having a fair bit of experience with .NET and ASP.NET I can see that this book covers only the basics, though it seems to cover them quite well. I have, however, found a few code errors in the examples, which I feel detracts a fair bit from the overall quality of the book.

I've not finished reading this book yet, nor have I completed all exercises. Already having a fair bit of experience with .NET and ASP.NET I can see that this book covers only the basics, though it seems to cover them quite well. I have, however, found a few code errors in the examples, which I feel detracts a fair bit from the overall quality of the book.

I just passed the exam with a pretty nice score 1.5 hours ago, and relied solely on this book for preparing for the exam for 10 days. I have solid background in Web development and use of C#. That said, here is my very personal comment:

- The quality of this book is beyond my doubt. The book might have two errors that I think I saw when I read it the 2nd time, though I wasn't 100% sure. Other than that, I didn't find any errors/typos/mistakes in it. Many subtle issues are explained in the book in a way very easy to understand.

- looking back, I believe that if one wants to pass the exam with ease by using this book, one'd be much better off by doing and studying all the questions that come with the CD. I'm a bit regretful that I didn't finish up most of the electronic practice questions.

- I don't know any other book on the same subject. But looking back, I feel the book (including all the materials included with it) was perfect to help me pass the exam. I have no doubt that without the help of this book (or similar), I wouldn't have been able to pass the exam.


Overall: the paper book alone may or may not be enough for anyone to rely on for passing the cert exam, but if you have taken advantage of all the materials that come with the book and if you have *FULLY* understood what is covered in the book, you'll be almost quaranteed to pass the exam on your very first try. I may be wrong on this because different people have different backgrounds, but that's what I believe while looking back.

I just passed the exam with a pretty nice score 1.5 hours ago, and relied solely on this book for preparing for the exam for 10 days. I have solid background in Web development and use of C#. That said, here is my very personal comment:

- The quality of this book is beyond my doubt. The book might have two errors that I think I saw when I read it the 2nd time, though I wasn't 100% sure. Other than that, I didn't find any errors/typos/mistakes in it. Many subtle issues are explained in the book in a way very easy to understand.

- looking back, I believe that if one wants to pass the exam with ease by using this book, one'd be much better off by doing and studying all the questions that come with the CD. I'm a bit regretful that I didn't finish up most of the electronic practice questions.

- I don't know any other book on the same subject. But looking back, I feel the book (including all the materials included with it) was perfect to help me pass the exam. I have no doubt that without the help of this book (or similar), I wouldn't have been able to pass the exam.


Overall: the paper book alone may or may not be enough for anyone to rely on for passing the cert exam, but if you have taken advantage of all the materials that come with the book and if you have *FULLY* understood what is covered in the book, you'll be almost quaranteed to pass the exam on your very first try. I may be wrong on this because different people have different backgrounds, but that's what I believe while looking back.

This isn't an introductory book for ASP.Net. You must have a solid understanding of the .Net Framework. It does however provide you with a solid preparation for the exam. If you are not a beginner and have experience with VB.Net or C# then get this book, it will for sure prepare you very well for the exam.

Read book, passed test, got job, can't complain.

This book does focus more on teaching ASP.NET than passing the test. I think that's a good thing, but I realize there are different opinions on that subject.

it assumes you dont know anything, and it does not teach you anything. Many times it tells you how, but not why, so you end up following instructions and you hardly know what you are doing.

In many respects I find this book very offensive and would not recommend it to ANYONE. Some of the reasons:

* I think it is enough to say once that you need to import a namespace into you code in order to use it. Jeff repeats the following code so many times that it becomes annoying:

Visual Basic.NET
Imports System...

Visual C#
using System...

* Jeff repeats the same code even when it is identical in VB.NET and C#. Excellent way to have many pages - who cares whats in.

* Jeff lacks rigour in every respect. Not only does he not teach you the whys, but anyone who knows C# would see that his code is very inefficient and frankly, ppl in my company would be fired for such stuff.


very poor work and I regret for buying this stuff...

I like to learn by getting my "hands dirty" through doing the examples in the text without using the CD-ROM, and have been using this book to attempt to learn C#.NET (not VB.NET). This book is totally terrible: In many cases the code does not work, or you have to scrutinize screen shots to see what steps have been left out of the step-by-step instructions to attempt to figure out what to do. Subject headings do not match the step-by-step content. The screen shots have a lot of added features that are not described in the step-by-step instructions. A lot of the C# code was obviously translated line-by-line from VB code, but never tested or even executed, as over one-third of the examples simply do not work. One "solution" had the steps totally mixed up, but the step numbers were in the correct order. It is obvious that nobody proofread this book, or even attempted to execute the steps on getting examples to work-- because a good number of examples simply do not work. As I delve into modestly complex examples, there are no instructions telling me *why* I'm modifying certain object properties, or even *what* my actions are doing. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to fix the author's errors and omissions rather than learning how to develop applications in C#. This book, in two words, Totally Sucks. Do not buy under any cirmcumstance. Save yourself.

Microsoft approaches certification exams the same way that the Educational Testing Service approaches SAT, GMAT and GRE college entrance exams.

ETS discourages people from using SAT preparation classes and books and, rather, encourages people to just work on their verbal and quantitative skills. They suggest that doing so is enough to do well on the exams. We all know better.

Microsoft takes the approach that, if you have a good mastery of the subject being tested then that is all you need to pass the certs. The Microsoft Self-Paced Training Kits (known as the "redbooks") do a reasonable job of teaching you the concepts of ASP.NET (and WinForms and the VB.NET/C# language and other tested topics), but they do a poor job of preparing you for the certs.

It's true that, if you review vocabulary words a lot and practice intermediate algebra and 10th grade geometry problems in the weeks preceding your SATs you may improve your score by 3 or 4%. But if you use that time to review sample test questions and analyze the structure and logic behind SAT questions using Princeton Review or Kaplan etc., then you will improve your score by considerably more than a few percentage points. The same goes for Microsoft certs. If you master the topic being tested (in this case, Web apps, ASP.NET), you may still pass the exam or, at least, slightly increase your score. But knowing the topic is not enough. You must know the exam, as well. This thinking goes against Microsoft's view of their own certification exams. Microsoft's thinking and point-of-view is reflected in their "redbooks."

Therefore, if all you want is to learn ASP.NET using either of the dialects of the VB.NET/C# language, then this book is OK (if a bit pricey compared to other "cert prep" books). But if you are looking for certification preparation (as opposed to just learning the topic), then a combination of one of the cert prep products such as TestKing or Transcender along with a book like Kalani (ISBN: 0789728222) is a much better approach. These tools will help you pass the exam. Kalani, in particualr, will help you master the topic AS WELL AS prepare you for the exam. TestKing and/or Transcender will give you practice with close-to-actual exam questions. No, they don't repeat real questions but they do give you examples of the TYPES of question to expect and give you practice with the nuances, languages and tricks that are part of the cert exam questions.

You can't pass the certs without understanding the topics (and I would never hire anyone who passed the exam by memorizing questions -- believe me, I can tell). But knowing the topics alone is usually not enough. The "redbooks" teach the concepts and prepare you for using the ASP.NET tools, but the "redbooks" do not prepare you for the exams.

If the books were cheaper (or if you can share with 2 or 3 friends), and your goal was just to learn how to program (but not necessarily pass a cert) then I would recommend this book for learning the topic. For cert preparation, however, use something else.

My "formula" for passing the exams is to read a longer, more comprehensive book cover to cover first and then read the exam cram book as review and final prep.

I found this book OK for step 1 of my formula but I do not feel it will be a very good non-exam prep resource for doing real-world work in the future. This book omits or is incomplete in several areas

What I liked about this book is that it presents concepts and major subject areas quite clearly and without the verbose tedium that characterizes a lot of programming books. Also, the code samples exemplify what each chapter is talking about without a lot of extranneous junk to sort through. I skipped most of the exercises at the end of each chapter 'cause I think I learn more - and have more fun - just making up little apps that do the same things. But the exercises I looked at seemed OK.

What I didn't like about the book is that the areas that it emphasizes aren't necessarily what was emphasized in the exam. I didn't even go through the practice exam on the CD because the MS practice exams on the three other MCSD exams I've taken were so unlike the real exams that I don't think they're worth spending any time on.

The book did help me pass the exam. But, it is not what I would consider to be a good study guide. From what I've seen, this is pretty typical of MS study guides. They usually have some good information but don't seem to focus on the areas that the exams emphasize. Like other reviewers, I had to use other sources of information to get prepared. I don't mean that I expect to be soon-fed all the answers, or even that all the details should necessarily be spelled out. I just think a study guide should be fairly accurate in terms of telling you what you need to know. That's why I only giver this book two stars.

The book itself was sorely lacking in some of the test areas, (namely ADO and Deployment) that are required to pass the actual cert test. However, in order to properly prepare for any of the tests; one must also examine other sources of information (such as the MSDN website) anyway. The labs were OK and the practice tests were adaquate and matched fairly closely the conditions of the actual test.

This book was somewhat dissapointing to me. First, there are too many mistakes (yes there is a website that corrects some of them, but not even half of the mistakes). Second, after taking the first test from Transcender, I ran into at least five questions who's subjects were not even mentioned in the book, meaning I failed the test just on those points. While I wouldn't expect the book to go into detail on everything, I would expect that all relavent subjects be introduced. Since reading this book, I have noticed that the book on this subject written by "Amit Kalani" has gotten good reader marks.

Good points: I liked the "game" test at the end. I also liked the labs. And to be fair, nothing in that this book covered was a waste. It just doesn't present everything necessary to prepare for the test which is what I would expect this book to do.

Please note that these review books are not for learning the material from scratch or only learning "just enough to pass" the test. I think that you would be better served by getting a full book on the topic.
I learn the material from daily work and from MSDN walkthroughs and subject material from full books on the topic. Then I have used the MS Press books to review, backing them up with MSDN. I like the MS Press books better at that point because they are more like an elaborated outline. I can get all of the material and then hit MSDN as needed. Then I use Measureup.com over the last six weeks before the test to evaluate myself (I don't use the included tests in either book). If you are looking for practice tests, they are almost always inferior.
Now about this book. It was good, but not as good as the MS Press MCAD review book for Windows. The section on saving state was very incomplete - contained info heavy on client side state such as query strings. Virtually nothing on different settings for maintaining session state(inproc, state server, sql server). I had to hit MSDN for alot more of the background knowledge for my review.

There is an included sample exam, but the application won't tell you which questions were wrong or give an explaination. The book is reference-like, while the exam is scenario-based. I agree that this book does a really poor job to help prepare for the exam.

This is the first time I bought a Microsoft Certification preparation prescribed book and maan am I disappointed. If you are looking for a book to learn ASP.Net, then look elsewhere. I doubt if this book can even be used as a reference book. Poorly organized contents, typos and errors make this book a frustrating experience.

The book is good if it is used as a review tool before the exam. I learned using Wrox's Professional ASP.NET and MSDN. I bought this book to give me hints on what to brush up on. Used like that, it works well.
There are a few hassles- e.g. there is a paragraph on tracing which suggests that pageOutput has to be false for tracing info to go into trace.axd (it doesn't matter, true or false). There are only 100 practice questions on the CD for the 2nd Ed, not 150.
P.s. MeasureUp practice Qs are the best ones, harder than the exam.

This book has too many errors/typos in most chapters to really be helpful. I frequently had to refer to the sample code on the CD in order to see how to get the programs to work.

Hi, I bought the 1st edition last June. It's a good reference but not enough for passing!
I think MSDN palys a great role (90%) if you really want to pass the exam.
You need at lease 1 year experience with VS.NET and .NET.

Good Luck

The demo for vs.net was very useful. Software aside, this book did not meet any of my expectations. I found a number of typos (especially in code examples). But, what really upset me was when I took the test that this book was sopposed to prepare me for only to find that there were a number of subjects that were not even covered in the book. (and I did learn the content of the book very well). Next, none of the questions in the book were anything like what the questions were like on the test. And finally, the practice test , although it was similar to the question format on the ms exam, did not provide any useful feedback! If you are looking to pass 70-315, look elsewhere.

I was amazed by the number of mistakes and typos in almost every chapter. I hope an "Errata and Updates" will be published to correct them. (I can provide a list on request).
Anyway, I got the impression that this book was published in a rush and might have not been thoroughly revised and tested.
As for the exam, knowing the content of this book inside out will help but not 100% sufficient to pass. (Sample questions are far away from reality).
The .NET DVD that comes with it is very helpful if you don't have the full version. It might be worth buying the book just for the sake of the .NET Software.
Marcellin N'G.
England (UK)