Sams Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days (Teach Yourself - 21 Days)

by Stephen Walther, Steve Banick, Jonathan Levine

Paperback: 624 pages
Publisher: Sams
ISBN: 0672318989; 1st edition (April 21, 2000)

The friendly, tutorial style of Sams Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days empowers you to create your own online stores quickly and easily. Using online-proven methods, Stephen Walther, an expert e-commerce developer, provides you with an understanding of online commerce applications, then guides you through the use of VBScript and ASP's built-in objects, enabling you to create your own dynamic, database-driven e-commerce solutions. This book does not stop at just creating the online store. The author teaches you to create order tracking systems, manage advertising, create store reports, personalize the shopping experience and much more.

Book Info: Designed to get you up and running doing business on the Internet with your own e-commerce site in 21 days. Helps to personalize the shopping experience for individual customers and announce specials or send personalized e-mail with Active Server Pages. Softcover. CD-ROM included.

From the Back Cover: The friendly, tutorial style of Sams Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days empowers you to create your own online stores quickly and easily. Using online-proven methods, Stephen Walther, an expert e-commerce developer, provides you with an understanding of online commerce applications, then guides you through the use of VBScript and ASP's built-in objects, enabling you to create your own dynamic, database-driven e-commerce solutions. This book does not stop at just creating the online store. The author teaches you to create order tracking systems, manage advertising, create store reports, personalize the shopping experience and much more.

Customer Reviews
Great introduction to ASP, August 17, 2000
Reviewer: David Peterson from Queensland, Australia
This book starts out excellent. I was a beginner at ASP programming so everything was well written and logical. Using this book I have been able to complete my first e-commerce store. There are a lot of great examples and they are also explained well. One part that is lacking is the logging in before you can add to the cart. This is done to avoid session variables, but I think it would turn away a LOT of customers. The author needs to point this out. I programmed my site to allow people to add without logging in and log in only when they are ready to buy. It was extra work, because none of the examples include this.

Later on in the book, different sections are written by different authors and you can tell. The writing style shifts dramatically and it is no longer as clearly written as the first part. The examples don't follow a consistent look any longer. Also, some of the example code isn't even on the CD and the code isn't even in the book (p. 280). The book says the code is too long to include in the book so it just references a few sections and then tells you the rest is on the CD. Nothing. The put the code on the SAMS site, but it took them awhile. I paid a lot of money for this book and it would be nice if they had just ONE person to proof read the examples and the writing before it was printed.

Overall this was a great book. Other than a few chapters in the middle, it was very well written and thought out. I would highly recommend it to beginners like I was or to anyone working on an e-commerce site.

Best Book for E-Commerce Intermediate and Advanced, August 29, 2000
Reviewer: William Retana from Jacksonville, Florida
As an experienced ASP Web Developer and Internet consultant for over four years, I am often asked by beginners: "What do I need to learn to get into VB, ASP, SQL, Server-IIS, JavaScript, VB Script, COM, etc....". I usually give the answer to start with a Teach yourself book. These are self paced and call guide you through some of the most simple problems or applications.

Sams created a very good book for those Internet startups companies and individuals. You will most definitely find most of your answers like personalization. A key factor in the E-Commerce industry now. On page 280 there was the checkpassword.asp file missing, but Sams has corrected that in a download.

Also, I have to admit that the coding used is well-formed, neat & clean, and extensive. I'm sure that the example would bring new content to some seasoned eCommerce expert as well.

For newbies you might consider another book such as Beginning ASP 3.0, Beginning ASP Databases. Even though this book is pretty easy to follow, it also assume you have some asp programming knowledge.

Overall Great Job and the examples do work!

Perfect for intermediate-level ASP programmers, April 13, 2002
Reviewer: Shaun W. Taylor from Raleigh, NC United States
My only complaint: lazy coding. Anyone working in a team environment knows that the code examples won't fly, but the reasoning behind the code and the flow of the code are certainly competent. Before reading, you should already have an ASP / VBScript background, although the first few chapters did provide some basics--but not nearly enough for a newcomer to get a firm grasp of the subject.

I found the book very valuable, and I picked up some great tips from the code examples. I placed numerous dog ears at pages where the code was much more efficient than mine. Great value. Always good to have some e-commerce expertise in your bag of tricks.

Excellent source for learning ASP at commerical level., April 4, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from England
This is trutly a excellent book for learning ASP the examples in this book includes ASP pages that uses SQL and ADO object for data access. The book explaines all the important object of ASP for example the request object that is used for requesting data from a HTML form. The book is based mainly on a project that's extended each day or week. Before reading this book I think it helps if you got some basic knowledge of ASP or VBSCRIPTS. I rated this book 5 stars Its worth the read and the money. Well done "Sams"

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