ASP NET and VB NET Web Programming The Addison Wesley Microsoft Technology Series
Posted by aspnetnerd on 29 Sep 2008 at 10:10 am | Tagged as: Book
ASP NET and VB NET Web Programming The Addison Wesley Microsoft Technology Series
Active Server Pages (ASP) has been the backbone of server-side programming in the Microsoft environment for several years. Visual Basic has been that company’s toolkit for developing client-server applications in a hurry. Now, with the release of the ASP.NET specification and the VB .NET development environment, the two technologies intersect more than ever. ASP.NET and VB.NET Web Programming explains how each of these technologies works on its own, and explains in implementation-level detail (i.e., lots of code listings) exactly how they work together to provide Web services under the .NET Framework.
Matt Crouch uses a nifty technique for annotating his code. Rather than comment long listings extensively, or repeat sections later for commentary, he attaches a number to interesting lines in long listings. Then, in the commentary sections that follow the listings, he refers to lines by number (so-and-so happens in line 84 because we did thus-and-such in line 56, for example). The effect is like reading an analysis of poetry. The technique works well, except for the fact that you sometimes end up flipping back and forth between commentary and listing. Overall, this is a fine choice for someone familiar with VB 6 or old-style ASP who wants to learn about Microsoft-style Web services with the help of numerous code samples and careful commentary. –David Wall
Topics covered: How to create Web sites under the Microsoft .NET Framework. The author covers techniques for creating HTML interfaces with ASP.NET, shows how to build managed components for COM+, and explains how to create Web services under VB .NET. It’s a comprehensive guide to Web services and HTML page generation for VB .NET programmers.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Poorly written, “jumpy” explanations
The author’s writing style is not only extremely poor, but confusing as he uses terminologies that a LOT of beginners may not be familiar with. You’ll find yourself going over to webopedia.com for explanations for a lot of his terms which he simply mentions or just glosses over.
I was forced to by this text for a college course and have found much better beginning asp.net and vb.net texts since buying it.
1 Star Bad Book
Disorganized….ADO.NET example in chapter 7 doesn’t even make any sense if you follow it….Errors throughout…download of examples doesn’t even have the examples from the book….
2 Stars Not for begginers to Microsoft programming
I am an experienced HTML, PHP and Javascript developper.
I recenctly decided I would like to pick up VB.net for web development and maybe pass 70-305. I just finished VB.net Step-by-Step and was pretty happy.
I bought this book based on the reviews and I have to say I am frustrated and disappointed.
First off, most of the book is spent making console applications, not web applications.
Second, there are no clear tutorials or labs that allow you to practice or apply what you have learned. Lots of code snippets and incomplete programs that aren’t terribly clear. Lots of theory, not much application
Finally, the author assumes knowledge that hasn’t been demonstrated in the book to date when giving examples or using terminology. For someone who is unfamiliar with the MS programming world, it can very confusing.
All in all I’m not impressed.
1 Star Very disappointing
.NET technology is specifically tailored for internet applications and the title of this book includes Web Programming. In fact there is very little coverage of web programming. The entire section on VB.NET covers only console applications. We are almost half-way through the book (if you ignore the 140 plus pages of appendices and index at the end) before a step-by-step guide to creating a (very simple) web application is given.
Most of the book consists of tedious listings of available controls and their properties/methods - is not that what the user manual is for? Code samples are almost childish, like displaying a message stating which check boxes have been selected. In the intro Crouch states the book is aimed at software developers. If so, why spend so much of the book explaining the simple in detail and skipping over the difficult concepts that are new to VB.NET. OOP is not new or exclusive ot VB.NET so why should it be covered here? And why having covered OOP, does Crouch then proceed to totally ignore the concept in his samples? Nowhere does Mr Crouch explain how to use his code samples, which are usually separate HTML and VB code, in the .NET framework. Loads of topics covered come without any code samples at all (yes, you’ve guessed it, the complicated or difficult parts).
The book also covers ADO.NET. Why? If I wanted a book on ADO.NET, then that is what I would buy. Ironically, the code included with the section on ADO.NET is much more practical than in the rest of the book. Pity the same standard could not have been applied throughout. I strongly recommend you buy something else.
3 Stars General
Over all this book is covering a lot of topics and should be good for beginner. Too much explanation of the code and stuff that’s obvious for intermediate / senior levels. I did encounter couple problems. COM+ part does not go into details. The sample that I made (downloaded) for this chapter did not work. It might be the operation system problem, but I did not find any references in the book that you can’t do this if you are running on WIN2000. Also, web services did not work with my components, again, no references in the book what do you do if web service looks inaccessible.
