Review

About this Book

This book is designed for someone with little (or no) knowledge of ASP.NET and over a 23 day period (yes, 23, either someone can't do math or they just couldn't fit it into 21) informs you of the knowledge you need to get a pretty firm foothold in the world of ASP.NET.

For a beginner

This book is designed for a beginner in ASP.NET, it starts off with the basics of what server-side programming is and all that and how to install the .NET Framework Beta 2 (which is included on the CD). Although it seems to go a bit fast into ASP.NET, I already knew a bit about ASP.NET so it was fine, but for a very new person, this jolt may be on the wrong track. However after the first two days the reader should get the hang of it.

On Day 4 it has a bit about using objects in C# with VB.NET. I didn't quite see the point of this chapter. It was either to confuse the reader or they labeled it 'Day 4' by mistake. To go with that, most of the chapter was in VB.NET anyway, but it was a quick and dirty guide to the exceedingly simple bits of C#.

It then introduces you to the world of a lot of the web form objects, the reference isn't totally complete on how to use them and left you in the short end in some cases, eg. It didn't even explain what asp:listitem was and there was no explanation ANYWHERE!

From Beginner to Intermediate

It then goes into things about Data. These days were very complex and although it gave you what you needed to produce the examples there, it didn't give you that much.
It only focused in OleDb (which I guess is OK for the beginner, don't want to overwhelm then with SQL Server), the explanation of the objects was good, but again a detailed look at the properties, methods and examples of it being used would have been great, there was an appendix at the back with the methods and properties of most of the objects talked about, but it wasn't as good as it could have been.

After a few days on data, a bit on those small things (caching, XML etc.) we get to Web Services. I wanted to know a lot about web services because I wanted to know how powerful they were and how to consume them.

I think it provided a very good look at Web Services (from my standpoint because I had already learnt a lot about them from that Episode of the .NET show and some other sources), but again - is it enough for the total beginner - yes.

It had some good information on things like - (I won't bore you with the details of these)

• Configuring and Deploying ASP.NET Applications

• Debugging (One of the deadly sins)

• Security (very good, as it looks at the new FSO earlier on)

• Mobile Applications (hmm, not exactly what I expected but good if you want to create mobile applications)

It even has got a full application that you build along the way with each week - An Online Bank.
On Day 22 you create another full app - An Online Shop.

Some other Stuff

I have always enjoyed books in the Teach Yourself _______ in 21 Days series and books from Sams and this one is no different. I'm already recommending it (and lending it) to people who are just starting in the world of server-side development.

Review by Chris Payne (Published 12/03/01)