Beginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010
Beginning ASP.NET 4.0 in C# 2010 follows in the footsteps of the highly successful .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 editions, teaching novice users how to use ASP.NET by gradually building their knowledge of the technology up in a pyramidal fashion chapter by chapter.
Comprehensively revised for both ASP.NET 4.0 and the new Visual C# 2010 language this book presents the easiest path to ASP.NET 4.0 mastery.
List Price: $ 49.99
Price: $ 30.99
Sorry, I have to be the first to not give 5 stars,
This book has lots of good information, and it is in mostly the right order. The problem with this book for many readers will be the style of presentation. It has been proven many times that people learn by doing, but this book doesn’t give you as much in that area as is necessary to learn. There is code that you can download but it doesn’t really line up with the book.
The worst part of this book are the code snippets that are placed throughout the book. They don’t show the surrounding code, so everything is out of context, and you don’t feel 100% sure of where it goes in your file, and to top it off, it is code that sometimes doesn’t relate to the code you download. Many times, instead of showing actual real-life variables, it just shows the equivalent of an ‘x’. So you have no idea how it is supposed to come together. It continuously says ‘code removed for clarity’. I understand the point of this as that code isn’t the focus of this section, but if I’m building a page, I need to see that code to make sure I have the same code as the book.
I would have to say that the information given is very precise, and if you already know C#, you’re probably going to enjoy this book, but if you are new to it, and need examples and practice, it’s not the best. Imagine watching an Olympic freestyle skier for a few minutes, and then without ever having skied or practiced jumping, you are suddenly asked to do the same flips and twists perfectly. Maybe an exaggeration, but you are really left on your own a lot of the time.
The book is very dry, so you have a very long attention span and motivation to get through the book in order to do well with it. It is clear it is written by a programmer. There are constantly references to terms that haven’t been defined previously, and sometimes you get the feeling this guy is trying to impress you with words. I’ve had professors like that, and although I respect their knowledge and intelligence, it does not contribute to a good learning atmosphere. I’m not saying ‘dumb it down’, but when learning a complex topic, the simpler it can be presented, the better.
Another problem is the low resolution of many of the screen shots. I know that’s a limitation of the technology, but it can actually be somewhat dizzying to look at because of the blurriness.
There are other pros, and other cons, but I just touched on the main ones I noticed.
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|Best ASP.NET book I have ever read!!,
Finally, a beginning ASP.NET programming book that definitely and orderly takes you from being a beginner to a programmer. Too many books out in the market place start off very basic and get very complex too soon. This book builds on itself, using the information you used in the previous chapter to aid in the understanding in the next chapter. I never felt like I had to go back and research a topic or look to other sources to understand the chapter I was reading. The author immediately started teaching about objects, value types, data types, and namespaces which gives the reader an object-oriented viewpoint from the beginning. The author is clearly a realist, quoting from Dan Appleman who once described inheritance as “the coolest feature you’ll almost never use”, and doesn’t waste your time focusing on items that you probably will never use. His real world examples aid in comprehension and makes learning actually enjoyable. I am glad the author chose to include advanced topics such as XML, ADO.NET, cashing, state management, Ajax, and LINQ as these technologies are used by every ASP.NET developer on a daily basis. I recommend this book to anyone who has never programmed before as well as for the seasoned developer who needs to learn ASP.NET.
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