ASP in a Nutshell 2nd Edition
Posted by aspnetnerd on 11 Oct 2008 at 01:36 am | Tagged as: Book
The second edition of ASP in a Nutshell gives developers of Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) a quick reference guide for looking up object usage on a dime. This guide is geared toward working ASP programmers who need to get their answers quickly, without wading through long examples.
The book is organized into three parts: an introduction to ASP, a language reference, and appendices. This edition has been updated for IIS 5.0 and ASP 3.0–respectively the latest flavors of Microsoft’s flagship Web server and scripting engines. The ASP introduction is very brief, but it adequately explains the basic concepts behind ASP and server-side scripting.
The heart of the title is the language reference that covers the intrinsic ASP objects, plus ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) 2.6, Collaboration Data Objects, file access, and more. Each section is tagged with staggered page markers that usually make it unnecessary to resort to the book’s index to find a topic.
While there are no full-blown code examples, the small code fragments that are included for most objects are valuable in illustrating usage. Throughout, the information is accurate and to the point, which is exactly what busy programmers really need in a desktop reference. –Stephen W. Plain
Topics covered:
|
|
| |
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Excellent book!
As a student in college, I want to learn some advanced web programming language. I found this book is very helpful for beginner. I also get a discount from couponsky.com when buying this book. This book is not only useful for beginner’s studying, you also can take it as reference after you finish the studying. I recommend this book to the beginners in ASP.
4 Stars Needs a VBScript/JScript book to complement it…
Be warned, if like I did, you think that this is the only book you’ll need to be able to build ASP scripts; you’re very much mistaken. Whenever I recommend this book, I always recommend it alongside VBScript in a Nutshell as you really need knowledge of an ASP supported scripting language before you can use ASP in a Nutshell to it’s full potential!
This is yet another reference book that I’ve owned both editions of because I thought it was useful enough to update; but then, my site is developed using ASP, so I’m probably biased in this respect. Ok, so I got the 1st Edition late on in the game and was a little reluctant to part with cash for the new edition - but as IIS 5 started to become standard for Windows hosting, and I had access to it after getting Windows XP Pro… I thought it was about time I updated it.
ASP in a Nutshell is my first point of reference when I’m looking up the properties of a particular ASP object. I’ve also found it an invaluable guide for connecting and manipulating ASP scripts that used ADO for data storage and manipulation. For a while it was the only book I owned that covered the issue of connecting ASP scripts to databases.
Most of the installable components I’d never heard of before getting the book, just as well really because few are of much use - even if they aren’t available on your system, a lot can be easily reproduced. The areas I find myself most frequently refering to are the main set of ASP objects, the FileSystem Object and the ActiveX Data Objects. These go into enough detail to keep all but the experienced programmers happy.
For those new to the Windows scene, there is a brief but detailed guide to setting up ASP to work with your IIS server; but it’s hardly rocket science since a clean install of IIS will set up most (if not all) of what you need anyway! If you use ASP regularly, or you intend to, then ASP in a Nutshell should be on your desktop… but please remember it won’t fulfill all your ASP development needs without another book to fill in the language gaps. What book you choose to accompany it depends on your language and experience… I personally like VBScript in a Nutshell.
5 Stars Excellent ASP reference book
This is an excellent companion book to ‘Professional Active Server Pages’. Like most O’Reilly Nutshell texts, this book is designed more as a reference aid, rather than a learning text. If you buy both the Professional ASP tome, and this reference guide, you’ve bought everything you need for ASP.
5 Stars Best book to brush up ASP concepts before moving to ASP.NET
I was an ASP programmer several years ago after which I moved to a different technology. Now, I need to come to speed on .NET, but unfortunately all the ASP.NET books make innumerous references to the old ASP which I have almost forgotten.
The book helped me *VERY* quickly go through ASP 3.0 and now I feel very comfortable reading the .NET books and can now truly appreciate ASP.NET.
A GREAT reference book!
3 Stars Good reference and code samples, but…
Somewhat in a rush and while trying to learn ASP I purchased this book. I thought it was aweful and it collected dust for nearly 6 months while I searched elsehwere to boot myself up on ASP. However, now that I’m fairly proficient at ASP, this book has been helpful as a reference. No so much for the actual reference value but becasue the sample code helps put things in perspective.
