Microsoft ASP.NET Fast & Easy Web Development by Pandey, Nitin

REVIEW: While not completely atrocious, this volume is certainly not among my favorite IT books. To begin, it is written in very understandable english. However, this is misleading. Oftentimes, that simple english conceals details that are quite useful and downright necessary for the examples given. To quote page 178: “Write the code for the GetDocumentation method.” Note that the book does not give you the complete code (unlike most tech books). All the reader gets is a screenshot of the VS.NET window.Now, you might think that’s not too bad. There’s probably a CD or a website that you can download the source from, right? Wrong. The website listed on the back of the book and in the introduction is not a valid URL. I eventually tracked down the real publisher and downloaded the source code. Unfortunately, it’s buggy and comes with a senseless installation application.
In essence, this book is a lot of flash and no substance. It doesn’t clearly explain concepts nor does it adequately present the material. At times it acts as if the reader is already very experienced (not providing the full source) while at others it reads as if it were written for a CS 101 class (showing step by step which buttons to click to create a new app).STRENGTHS: Very few and far between. The screenshots provided are useful for positioning of controls and overall appearance conformity. The book also does a decent job of introductory explanations such as “Introducing the .NET Initiative.” Which, parenthetically you could also read for free about on Microsoft’s site. These, however, do not outweigh the glaring errors present though.
WEAKNESSES: Aside from the above complaints, a major issue that I had with the book is that it did not use standard Hungarian notation. Instead, the author used IDs such as “AdRotator1”, “CalStart”, “documentation”, “picture”, etc… Naming conventions like these simply scream “amateur” to me.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: If you still want to read it, I’d recommend that you already be familiar with VB.NET or C#. Also, an understanding of web technologies such as IIS and SQL Server are quite useful when the author neglects to tell you important information.FOR SIMILAR/RELATED TOPICS, CONSIDER: I would recommend “ASP.NET by Example” (ISBN 0789725622) or “Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 21 Days” (ISBN 0672324458). Both are far better.