Every now and then, a book comes along that I feel deserves 5 stars. This is one of those books. This book targets the intermediate Visual Basic.Net developer but someone trying to learn Visual Basic.Net, ASP.Net, ADO.Net, or XML will find that this book is easy to read. Chapters 1 through 10 cover ASP.Net, Chapter 11 covers XML, and Chapter 12 covers ADO.Net. At the end of several chapters, the authors provide a mini-reference. For example, at the end of chapter 11, there is a mini-reference on XML. I use these mini-references on a daily basis. In each chapter the authors have ample examples. The amazing thing is that they all work. I followed every example and with a minor exception of 1 example in the XML Chapter, all of the examples worked. The one exception just required some minor adjustments (using the XML indentation method). This is my first book by Jeffery P. McManus and Chris Kinsman but it won't be the last. I plan to buy their equivalent book on C#. I would also buy any "advanced" books that the authors write.

Pros: Easy to read, ample examples that work, and mini-references at the end of the chapters.

Cons: I would like to see more illustrations in the book.

This book is definitely a "Buy".

As an experienced VB and ASP developer, I have spent the last year trying to make some progress in developing ASP.NET applications. 5-6 book purchases helped, but I never could really get the hang of it, until I got this book. After a very enjoyable time reading this book, and working through the examples, I am now going back through the other books, getting much more understanding from them.

It's hard for me to say why this book proved to be so much more helpful, but it did. Jeffrey McManus is a good speaker and author, and this is the first book I've read from Chris Kinsman. Maybe it's their language that helped me, maybe it was the subjects they chose to spend time on, but one way or another, this book opened the floodgates for me.

A couple of things I can definitely say that I found to be head and shoulders above other books are:

1) Lack of errors/typos, etc. I'm not saying there aren't any, but this book definitely was not one of those that make it harder to learn simply because you think what you are reading is right, and it isn't. I had zero problems like that.

2) Easy to follow code examples. So many books I've read make their examples too complex, expecting that you know everything that they are doing except for the one narrow thing they are trying to teach you. Like using regular expressions to validate email addresses before you save them to the database, and this in an example of "how to save to the database." This book has none of that junk. Each example cuts to the core of what it is trying to show you, and makes sure to explain it all, step by step.

I can't wait for these guys to team up again.

I would recommend this book for those VB/ASP developers who wish to get a basic guide to migrating to the new .NET technology. It does assume some previous knowledge of ASP development. It is useful as a handy reference for major features of .NET ASP development. I would not recommend it for those just getting started with ASP.NET.

The book is well organized for the amount of subject matter covered. I found it somewhat daunting at first, since the author gets right into the new features of ASP.NET without a lot of background and foundation theory. Some may find this cutting to the chase as a feature, but the subject of migration is no small task.

Going on to the page framework and configuration chapters, however provided a more rewarding journey. The book provides some basic knowledge needed for configuring and deploying an ASP application. This is an important topic that many books do not cover as thoroughly.

The coverage of Web services is quite sufficient to get one started on their way to developing web service based applications. The code examples are well organized and easy to navigate and relate well to illustrate the text. The book is not, however a guide on style or technique - you'll need to develop that elsewhere.

The sections on XML and ADO.NET are enough to get started with a good understanding of how these topics are so importantly tied into ASP.NET applications.

Overall, the authors provide a great deal of detailed information without a lot of unnecessary verbiage. The book makes a reasonably good reference worth keeping at hand. -- Reviewed by Richard S.

This book is very easy to read, and the examples in the book are all easy to follow. It provides enough information for people who are new to .NET and those who need a reference tool. The book has a good background on Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET, XML, and ADO.NET. Very easy to understand.

Chapter 2 provides good information for migrating from ASP to ASP.NET. It helps ASP 3.0 developers understand the differences between ASP 3.0 and ASP.NET and what needs to be changed. This book also discusses the general idea of Web Services, XML and ADO.NET with very simple examples. Having this makes it very helpful in understanding the corrolation of all the .NET features. You may want to pick up other books if you want to know more about these topics. I was able to use some of the examples in my development work, the examples are very nicely written and very well explained. This book, as is, can be a good tool for both learning .NET and used as a reference in future development work. I recommend the book. ---Reviewed by Annie W.

This book is good for beginners and mid level .NET developers; it can also be used as a reference, too. It is concise and it contains complete examples (hello W...). The author does not assume that you have VS.NET, which can be a plus for some.

I have other books written by Jeffery McManus. This book is just as good. I would like to see more books written by this author but on the advance side, for those who mainly use VS.NET as their development environment.