Book Review: ASP.NET:Tips, Tutorials, and Code

I picked up "ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code" after a playing with ASP.NET for quite a few months. I had a pretty good understanding of how ASP.NET worked and how I could build simple ASP.NET pages. I was looking for a book to help me understand build bigger and more complex ASP.NET applications. "ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code" answered the questions that all intermediate ASP.NET developers will have.

I like to read book reviews and I know what types of things I want to know about a book. I will try to address the key pieces of information that I think will make deciding if "ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code" is a book for you, an easy question.

Author(s): Scott Mitchell, Steve Walther, Doug Seven, Donny Mack, Chris Payne, Billy Anders, Adam Nathan, and Dan Wahlin
Publisher: SAMS
Pages: 878
Chapters: 19

Chapter 1: Common ASP.NET Page Techniques
Chapter 2: Common ASP.NET Code Techniques
Chapter 3: Form Field Input Validation
Chapter 4: Enabling Better Browser Support
Chapter 5: Creating and Using User Controls
Chapter 6: Data Manipulation with ADO.NET
Chapter 7: Data Presentation
Chapter 8: Using XML
Chapter 9: ASP.NET Error Handling
Chapter 10: Debugging ASP.NET Applications
Chapter 11: ASP.NET Deployment and Configuration
Chapter 12: Security with ASP.NET
Chapter 13: Web Services
Chapter 14: Managing State
Chapter 15: ASP.NET Performance Tips
Chapter 16: Separating Code from Content
Chapter 17: Mobile Controls
Chapter 18: ASP.NET Http Runtime
Chapter 19: COM and Win32 in ASP.NET Web Pages
Appendix A: Upgrading to Visual Basic .NET
Appendix B: Commonly Used Regular Expressions
Appendix C: Commonly Used Stored Procedure Templates

This book is for the intermediate ASP.NET developer. If you are like me, you will learn the fundamentals of ASP.NET with a book like SAMS Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 21 Days. After you have wet your appetite with some basic ASP.NET knowledge (enough to build simple applications), you will have some holes and gaps to fill in your knowledge. YOu will also want to know some tips and tricks for creating more efficient higher performing code. I want to say that even if you are a beginner, you will grow into this book over time. Advanced developers will also steal a trick or two from this book.

There are not a lot of bad things about this book. I would have preferred that they not try to cover XML Web Services. Covering the surface of a Tips and Tricks book just doesn't seem to be a very efficient use of pages to me. I would like to have seen an extra 40 pages on managing state (there is a chapter on managing state but I would like to know more) in my applications as it is more applicable to my ASP.NET development.

The sample code is comprised of some VB.NET and some C#. I would like all sample code to be shown in both languages as it makes reading away from the computer a more enjoyable experience.

Holy cow, I hope your ready for a lot of great material!

Chapter 2 is awesome! Well, awesome if you are interested in code that allows you to: generate graphics on the fly, send email from a ASP.NET page, grab HTML content from another ASP.NET page using ASP.NET, manipulate various Windows performance counters, upload files from a client's browser to a web server, and more.

Chapter 3 covers Form Field Input Validation. This is an area that classic ASP developers will really want to leverage as client side validation tends to be one of the most tedious and time consuming tasks that we must perform. The Validation controls are amazing and this chapter shows you how to leverage them.

Chapter 11 covers ASP.NET Deployment and Configuration. ASP.NET is now configurable using a couple different XML Files that, quite frankly, don't have a lot of documentation at this point. Chapter 11 cleared up a lot of my questions and clued me in a few tricks about the deployment of my ASP.NET applications. In addition to a nice explanation of the various XML configuration files, there is a great section on the Global Assembly Cache, versioning assemblies, strong names, and pretty much anything else related to deploying .NET assemblies.

There are a handful of other GREAT chapters that make this book a VERY valuable addition to any ASP.NET developers library.

Got you Interested eh? =) Well, then you should read Chapter 2: Common ASP.NET Code Techniques and Chapter 6: Data Manipulation with ADO.NET

For the appropriate audience, I would rate this book an 8.9 out of 10.

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