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I’m a database developer that dabbles in application development. I’ve worked with every version of Visual Basic released by Microsoft, every version of “Classic” ASP, and ASP.NET 1.0/1.1 (Sorry, no .NET 2.0).

I needed a book that would give me the basics of ASP.NET 3.5 using VB so that I could get up to speed for a new project. This book was perfect!

Too many other books have either completely abandoned VB and are now strictly for C# developers, or, give lip service to Visual Basic and “offer” to let you download VB examples from their website. Not much help to those of us that aren’t C# gurus. (Ever try converting C pointer reference syntax to something comparable in VB? Not so much…)

This book starts with a short history of .NET, gives you a couple chapters of VB.NET basics (syntax/control structures/classes/objects/etc.), and then jumps into building web pages. I used (FREE) Visual Web EXPRESS 2008 as my platform and never missed an example in the book.

I spent about an hour or two a day mulling over the different chapters and within a week or so was pumping out web pages filled with bound and unbound data from a MS SQL 2005 database.

While this isn’t a monkey-see-monkey-do (step-by-step) book, it is full of code snippets and detailed explanations of how things work. If you need, you can always download the full source code for all the examples and then step through the code using the debug feature of VW 2008 Express.

Considering the very limited number of Visual Basic books on ASP.NET 3.5, this book is a MUST HAVE for anyone/everyone looking to move up from previous versions of .NET (And a good starting point for .NET newbies). It is a fixture in my cube for use as a quick reference to answer the too often question of “How did I do that before…”

The only reason I didn’t give it fives stars was because it’s coverage of Ajax was so sparse (one quick/short chapter). But, considering that Ajax is a language/architecture in itself, it really wouldn’t be fair to expect too much coverage in a “Beginner’s” book.

Rating: 4 / 5

I am using this book for a scripting languages class I am currently taking. I have not read the whole book at this time. What I have read, is poorly written. The book says it is from beginner to professional. Well I am a beginner and if there is any beginner information in this book I have yet to see it. It reads to someone who has a very good understanding of Visual Basic and not to a beginner at all. They throw a lot of terms at you and do not back them up with examples. This would be extremely helpful. There is a lot of assumptions being made. The instructor selected the book for the class so I am stuck with this book (hopefully it will have some value when I get a better understanding of Visual Basic). The good part is Amazon had it for a much better price than the book store. If you are purchasing this manual to learn Visual Basic as a novice/beginner I strongly urge you to save you money. You will only be wasting your money and be more confused than educated.

Rating: 1 / 5

I found this book to be very helpful. The chapter on security was the most coherent explanation I read, and I have read several books on web programming. The book delved deep enough into many topics so even an experience developer could learn something.

The “Beginning” in the title, however, could cause some confusion. The book is aimed at intermediate/advanced web developers that are new to ASP.NET/VB programming.
Rating: 5 / 5