ASP.NET Unleashed

by Stephen Walther

Paperback: 1464 pages
Publisher: Sams
ISBN: 0672320681; 1st edition (November 26, 2001)

A well-known expert in the ASP development community, best-selling Author Stephen Walther brings his experience as an ASP.NET trainer to ASP.NET Unleashed. With this valuable guide, readers learn the advanced features of ASP.NET, and how to apply them in their own Internet applications. This in-depth, code-intensive title covers a broad range of advanced ASP.NET topics that include:
• Validating Form Data;
• Programming Mobile Devices;
• Using Code Behind;
• Building Custom ASP.NET Controls;
• Creating Graphics with GDI.NET;
• Data Access with ADO.NET;
• ASP.NET Security;
• Using XML in ASP.NET Applications;
• Building and Consuming Web Services.

About the Author: Stephen Walther has been involved with Active Server Pages from the beginning. Since 1997, he has been running the Superexpert Web site (superexpert), a popular Active Server Pages resource on the Web and the first "live" Web site created with ASP.NET. His training company, AspWorkshops (AspWorkshops), conducted the first training class on ASP.NET. He also lectures regularly on ASP and ASP.NET.

Stephen got his start working with Active Server Pages by developing two large commercial Web sites. First, he created the Collegescape Web site, used by more than 200 colleges-including Harvard, Stanford, and MIT-to accept online college applications (Collegescape was bought out by Petersons). Next, he created the CityAuction Web site, used by both Snap! and CitySearch (CityAuction was acquired by CitySearch).

Stephen received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he became involved with the World Wide Web.

Customer Reviews
Good ASP.NET coverage but not for C# developers, February 11, 2002
Reviewer: adham21 from San Diego, CA United States
This books covers pretty much all aspects of ASP.NET in good detail. The examples are well documented and many apply to common everyday problems. I've only two problems with the book:

1. All the source is in VB.NET. I thought the book would offer the examples in both VB and C# or at least offer an online copy of the source in C#. But I admit this is my fault since I didn't check more carefully before I bought the book.

2. The author constantly keeps refering to the samples "on the CD accompanying the book." I find this very annoying since there's NO cd accompanying the book! I'm not sure how this could've escaped the editors and the publisher. Either they knew there would be no CD and didn't care to revise the material or they didn't ship the CD. Having the source on CD is not a big deal since you can get it online, but it's just a matter of respecting the readers.

Decent reference -- Inadequate tutorial -- No C# code, April 23, 2002
Reviewer: Jakob Hussfelt from Sweden
To begin with, this book isn't clear about what language is covered throughout the book. It seems it's trying to hide that it covers only Visual Basic. If you're into C#, you have to translate the examples yourself although these translations are ridiculously simple about 29 times out of 30. The 30th time, a certain amount of C# experience or extensive newsgroup searches will be needed.

If you want a decent VB reference you can go for this book or simply use the free .NET Framework SDK Documentation. The advantage of having this book at hand is that it sheds some light on the topics with its own examples.

As a tutorial to read from cover to cover, I think the author could have done a better job. If you read e.g. pages 84-131, you will read about the same text repeated four times with the exceptions being the search-and-replace that seems to have been performed on some words. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but not that much. I guess that's the price of having one author managing to write a 1400 pages book on a new technology all by himself, pressured by time.

I could recommend this book to VB programmers wanting something more than the free Microsoft documentation for ASP.NET. This is not a strong recommendation though. Have a look at the alternatives as well.

A Great ASP.NET Resource, May 25, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from ROMEOVILLE, IL USA
This book, without a doubt, has the most coverage of ASP.NET. The reasons are as follows: First, the coverage on ADO.NET with ASP.NET is fabulous. Actually, I took some of the code that he used in some of the chapters and was able to modify it for some projects at the company I worked for. Second, the downloadable code is extremely useful and is organized very well. Third, the material it covers is more than some of the other publishers' books. Some of the other publishers want you to buy more books, just to cover certain topics. Overall, this book is a great buy and a great reference.

By far the most well written text for learning ASP.NET, May 23, 2002
Reviewer: Robert from West Palm Beach, FL United States
Seldom does the writing of a book inspire me to take the time to create a review. But I have found myself saying that I wished I had started with this book so many times, that I thought I might be able to save some of you some time and effort.

This is an excellent reference for learning ASP.NET. Of all of the books I currently own (Professional ASP.NET, ASP Programmer's Reference, Programming Data Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET and Professional ASP Website Programming) this book stands FAR ahead of the crowd in terms of staying clear and within the scope of learning all of the essentials of ASP.NET development.

While this book doesn't bode as well as the Wrox books as a pure reference, it more than makes up for it in the way the author truly understands how to educate. Clear, concise and relevent are the three words that best describe the author's writing style.

For those of you who are new to ASP and/or ASP.NET, this is without a doubt the first (albeit not the only) book you should purchase. A truly excellent learning tool.

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.NET Application & Database

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