Mastering Active Server Pages 3

by A. Russell Jones

Paperback: 832 pages
Publisher: Sybex
ISBN: 0782126197; Bk&Cd-Rom edition (April 2000)

Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology is popular for both Internet and intranet Web sites, thanks to its use of familiar Visual Basic script, easy access to databases, and integration with Windows NT and Windows 2000. This title is a complete guide to ASP 3 (the Windows 2000 version), but most of the book applies equally to ASP 2. No previous knowledge is assumed.

The author, Russell Jones, is the interactive-developer columnist for Visual Basic Programmer's Journal. The book begins with an overview of ASP and HTML, describes the intrinsic ASP objects that form the foundation for ASP programming, introduces both VBScript and JScript, and provides a guide to file access using the File System Object. A key to ASP is accessing data with Active Data Objects (ADO), and the database section describes both ADO and the SQL query language. The book also includes a brief look at transaction handling with Microsoft Transaction Server.

Final sections address the bigger picture: designing complete applications. The discussion of state management and general tips on application design are valuable. The book gives a brief introduction to developing your own components, alongside chapters on task scheduling, scalability, XML, and using ASP on Unix.

The strength of this book is also its weakness. In making it suitable for ASP beginners, the author has limited the space available for advanced topics. If you are looking for extensive coverage of COM+, more detail on ADO, or using ASP with Message Queue Server or Active Directory, for example, check out Professional Active Server Pages 3.0. On the other hand, beginning and intermediate developers will find Mastering Active Server Pages 3 an excellent starting point.

Book Description: Active Server Pages is Microsoft's technology for delivering dynamic, interactive Web applications. Mastering Active Server Pages gives comprehensive coverage of the latest version for Visual Basic, VBScript, and Visual InterDev programmers. The book also covers the newest Linux/Unix version of ASP (ChiliASP) and discusses both VBScript and JavaScript implementations. Author Russell Jones is a well-known Web development expert and contributes frequently to Visual Basic Programmer's Journal. He is also the author of Sybex's Visual Basic Developer's Guide to ASP and IIS.

Customer Reviews
For Reference Only, June 13, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Lake Forest, CA United States
Although this book is thorough in covering all topics surrounding ASP, the examples and sample code are of little help. The sample code is TERRIBLY error prone and nearly every page requires some debugging. Once the applications are working, they are basic and offer little insight into intermediate web development.

Best ASP book for Beginner through Intermediate, August 5, 2000
Reviewer: d_sonewald from Cleveland, OH United States
Thirty chapters of very well taught material. The first half of the book is a very clear introduction to the ASP environment and how to use the intrinsic objects. The second covers other scripting objects, ADO, MTS, XML and how to plan your web site for scalability. The many code examples on the CD are concise, efficient, and scalable. I refer to them frequently. Although the book contains many examples of accessing databases through ADO in VBScript, he points out that this kind of thing is done much more efficiently in a COM component. He shows how to build VB COM components and how to use them in MTS through ASP. Most of the code is in VBScript; however, the surprising inclusion of JScript client side scripting and XML client and server side programming make for a very pleasant and well rounded learning experience. After bringing it to work, two coworkers also ordered it. I cannot think of a better recommendation than that.

Utterly useless book, January 5, 2002
Reviewer: james thompson from pleasant hill, ca United States
This book is poorly organized. The author starts out by saying that one does not have to be a programmer and then immediately launches into PERL, CGI, ADO, VB, etc. How many non-programmers know about ADO providers. On administering IIS, he states that one can use the web browser. But, you will get a message from Microsoft that this can only be done if one is running Windows SERVER 2000. A hundred pages or more are devoted to learning HTML and another 100 to VB Script. If I wanted to learn HTML, I would get a book on HTML. Happy to say that the bookstore refunded my purchase, but still angry that I wasted two hours reading it and then returning it.

Beginner unfriendly, November 28, 2001
Reviewer: seahorse2001 from Osaka, Japan
For the ASP neophyte, Mastering ASP 3 is a poor effort. While the book does cover many of the ASP basics, it does it in such a way that beginners have very little understanding of what and how the various lessons can actually be used in real web applications. The text is long, difficult to read, and there are several chapters where you complete a chapter feeling that you haven't learned anything of practical value. While, I'm sure that it is possible to learn ASP from this book, I'm equally sure that there are other books out there that will allow you to learn in a faster, easier, and with less confusion. I'd recommend the Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 from Wrox for those who are interested in a better organized, more practical way to learn ASP.

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