Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good book but...
Comment: This is a good book. The reason for my 3 stars, is excessive forward references in this book. Basically you have to read this book backwards in some arbitrary order. If Ajax is one of the last sections of this book, there should be no Ajax discussion prior to its introduction. The book has also less than optimal editing. Almost every discussion has a full short example. It would have been nice to highlight the relevant parts of the example so that people didn't have to read the code line by line to identify the discussion point. [This has nothing to do with the book: don't be afraid of the 1700+ pages, like everything else Microsoft, there is 300% overhead in concept, technology, implementation and you still don't know what exactly is going on under the hoods. If you are not mandated by something or someone to do your pages in ASP.NET, just do it with jsp or jsf or gwt or struts combined with spring. You will be happier at the end...]
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best ASP.NET Reference Out There
Comment: This book is not a "How-To" book by any means. There aren't any projects that are built in stages, the chapters don't build on each other and there isn't a tutorial attitude in the writing. What it is though is a great reference work, with examples and tips for every facet of ASP.NET 3.5. By nature, ASP.NET 3.5 includes ASP.NET 2.0 and this book has a solid rework of the author's ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed content to match the 3.5 framework additions. As others have mentioned, it's a shame there wasn't room for VB code samples in the book, but they are on the CD and inclusion in the book would have created a tome that would give the mailman a hernia.
I don't recommend this book to beginners -- I recommend this book to everyone. At least eventually. Once you start coding in the 3.5 framework you'll find yourself looking for a sample or a quick reference from this book on a daily basis. If you're just starting with ASP.NET you'll want a book that covers the basics of C#, and perhaps a tutorial ASP.NET book if you learn better that way, but if this book isn't your first purchase you should make it your second or third.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ohhhhh yeah!
Comment: Stephen Walther's earlier book on ASP.NET was a well-worn bible, used pretty much daily for months as I learned about the new .NET world. I especially appreciated his tight focus. Almost any topic seemed to be brilliantly simplified and explained with just enough words and code to get me on my way quickly.
Five years later, Mr. Walther has not lost his touch. I've spent much of the day with this book and hope I can remember even half of the new insights I've gained. It's a good, measured workout for the brain. It's also a good workout for the arm; it's nearly 1900 pages long even though code samples are in C# only! (VB code is on the CD that comes with the book.) Like the last one, this book is thoroughly comprehensive, yet is a comfortable and very efficient tool. Very tight, very clear.
If you're only going to buy one book on ASP.NET 3.5, then this is unquestionably the one to buy. If you plan to buy a few, buy this one first and you may decide you don't need more.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not happy!
Comment: I have nothing bad to say about Stephen Walther nor the books that he writes. However, I'm not happy with this book because it did not have VB examples in it. I have every other book he has made in the ASP.NET Unleashed series and was "VERY" disappointed when this one did not have VB examples in the book.
Hopefully, the next release of ASP.NET Unleashed will.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Avoid: much better ones out there
Comment: Avoid this one: it's poorly organized, topics are poorly presented, intentional "padding" is painfully obvious on every page -including the silly code dumps in lieu of proper prose about how to get that code with drag-and-drop of controls in Design mode (Design mode never broached!) The continous repetition -or saying the same thing 3 different ways (and simple things, not complexe things that may need 3 ways to convey properly) make the book twice as large (maybe 3 times as large) as it should be. Then, writing style is dry, clunky, but not even in a scientific matter of fact way, just a low-vocabulary way, leaving you bored instead of excited. The worst thing however, is content: a serious lack of proper introducion to the general concept of developing web applications with ASP.NET, and then a lack of introduction to each topic. This paid-per-page author has no idea who his audience is (hasn't decided), ommitting key explanations for new-comers while rambling on about simple concepts more that any programmer would need -or even any english reader. Quantity over quality definately ruling here. I read many computer books in 23 years of programming, and was wondering "Do they not write good training books anymore?" Well, I bought Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008, Second Edition (Windows.Net) and said "Whew! Yes they do!"
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