Book recommendations...

[ahmedtheking]

I'm thinking of learning some ASP (and .NET, whatever happens!) but I'm confused in which direction I should go and what book(s) to get? Usually, i'd get something from peach pit press as theyre the ones ive found most useful, but i'm just so lost!

Any help would be great!

[txbakers]

I adore the Murach book for ASP.NET.

The Wrox books are also good, but I find them a little to abstract. The Murach books are defined with step by step instructions - one lesson to a page, and they DON'T treat the reader like a dummy.

I really have no love for those "dummy" books. I'm not a dummy, I just don't know the subject.....yet.

[mrMister]

I wouldn't bother learning ASP if you've not learnt it already. Go straight with ASP.Net

ASP.Net can do anything that ASP can do, and you'll find it easier to get information and help with it.

I would recommend ASP.Net Unleashed (Second Edition)

ISBN: 067232542X

It was recommened to me by a couple of other programmers I know and with good reason.

It's very comprehensive and well structured. It's a big book, heading towards 2,000 pages, and covers everything.

Two drawbacks that people have cited:

It only includes VB.Net samples in the book. Although all the examples are included on the CD-ROM in both C# and VB.Net

Secondly, the book doesn't use Visual Studio as a basis for programming. If you're used to Visual Studio, you may find this a problem.

In my opinion though, you should not learn to program in Visual Studio for the same reason as you shouldn't learn to drive with an automatic gearbox. You might find it a bit easier, but you'll be restricted to just using Visual Studio forever more.

[txbakers]

Is that a Sam's or a Wrox book?

Generally I've found that the "Unleashed" series of books were a bit to random to start with. I needed a good solid "here's how to get started with the basics" book before I let go of the leash.

But since .NET version 2 is around the corner, I wouldn't buy ANY .NET book at the moment. There are so many changes in the system that any book you buy now will be obsolete quickly.

[ahmedtheking]

Thanks to all of you for replying! Ok, whens .net 2 out? And when will good "straight to the point" books be out?

[aspdaddy]

If you can program already then oreillys ado.net in a nutshell and asp.net in a nutshell will give you most of what you need to complete an asp.net project.

If you are completely new to asp/asp.net then id recommend doing the quickstart tutorial at dotnetjunkies first.
[dotnetjunkies.com...]

[mrMister]

Yes, I'm a big fan of the nutshell books as great references. You'll need either both the VB.Net books (VB.Net core classes, VB.Net Langues) or the c# Book as well ast the ASP.Net and ADO.Net books.

However, if you're learning, you'll probably want a more complete book rather than a series of references.

[ahmedtheking]

And that book/those books would be...?

[mrMister]

The full suite of ASP.Net nutshell books?

ASP.Net in a nutshell
ADO.Net in a nutshell
VB.Net Language in a nutshell
VB.Net Core Classes in a nutshell
C# in a nutshell

The "more complete book" that I'd recommend is:

ASP.Net Unleashed (Second Edition) ISBN: 067232542X

That pretty much covers everything from the ground up.

Personally, I have all of the above books (excluding ADO.Net in a nutshell) plus a few others (O'Reilly's Object Oriented Programming in VB.Net is a nice one for giving a full understanding of the OOP model that the .Net framework uses)