Active Server Pages (ASP) has proven to be a very popular technology for web developers. The main reason for this has been ease of use. Even though ASP can run on other platforms, it is mainly found on the Windows platform. The advent of Microsoft's .NET framework has caused many people to wonder about the future of web development for windows based developers.

'Professional ASP.NET' is aimed at existing ASP developers who are considering the move to .NET. The authors begin the book with various introductions, i.e. ASP.NET, .NET framework and the main languages that it supports. The emphasis then shifts to the bread and butter aspects of ASP.NET, the server controls, data access, debugging and error handling. The book also covers some important issues such as the architecture and how to use and extend the intrinsic server controls. Chapters are also dedicated to Web Services and other devices such as phones and PDAs.

Chapter 23 is concerned with the issues involved in migrating your existing ASP applications to ASP.NET.

The final chapter is a case study of implementing a simple n-tier e-commerce application with ASP.NET.

All in all the standard of ASP books from Wrox have been high in the past and the leagacy of books such as 'Professional ASP 2.0' lives on with the latest offering. If you are a serious ASP developer then this book is essential.

In my mind, Wrox has become the defacto standard for technical topics. I can't imagine going elsewhere, because the authors usually do such a great job covering every angle of a subject.

This book also meets that high expectation.

I was initially concerned that the material would be incomplete due to the current state of the .NET technology (Beta2), but my fears were unfounded. I feel very comfortable that the material contained herein will be relevant for years to come. As I have scanned the entire book, and read numerous chapters, I am very pleased with the wide coverage given to every relevant topic: Controls, XML, Database integration, Security, Web Services, COM+ integration, Architecture, etc. It's all there, and so better than anything else I've found or seen.

I've been anxious to get started with .NET, and now I finally feel like I've got all the knowledge I need to start building real .NET apps.

Nicely done!

I originally bought Preview to Active Server Pages+ (Wrox 2000) and was very frustrated at the way .Net was introduced as well as the order of the chapters. It simply wasn't pleasant trying to dig into this asp.net 'thing'.

With Professional ASP.Net, the experience has been totally different, probably since it's 1 year later and also based on Beta2, and not Beta1.

An exellent introduction to how .Net works, and how everything fits in leads into a logical flow of chapters that makes perfect sense to me. It's an absolute pleasure learning from this book!

Mr. Cline wrote this book with a very unbiased attitude. Specifically, he included opinions of other people and made sure the reader knew the sources. His footnotes and extensive bibliography show that he did a lot of research. Throughout the book, his language shows a love of vocabulary, but clear ideas. From the beginning he quickly summarizes the history of Mexico up to 1940, then, starting with geography, he discusses a variety of topics, all relating to the revolution. With charts and maps he illustrates his points very well. This book delves deeply into Mexico's revolution, but is not interesting nor useful for the current time period. However, Cline wrote an extremely informative book for his time period, with an official approach caused by his federal job. The book is quite similar to a book called Mexico: A Country Study, I think. More recent books are better for information. Because the book is about the specified time period, I would only recommend the book to an historian. Anyways, I did not like this book because it was boring and very long because I am not that interested in Mexico and I don't need to know that much.