Professional Active Server Pages 3.0, by Alex Homer, is a book on developing web applications using Active Server Pages 3.0. This book goes in depth into developing web applications with discussions and examples on advanced topics such as, CDO/Microsoft Exchange Server, ADO/Microsoft SQL Server, and ADSI/Active Directory. Homer presents the reader with a wealth of information on advanced enterprise level topics based on Microsoft technologies. This book is excellent for intermediate/advanced users who wish to learn about Active Server Pages using Microsoft technologies, however due to the fact Homer does not goes in depth with fundamentals of programming Visual Basic Script, this book should not be recommended to novice developers.

Throughout the book, Homer discusses the importance of COM/COM+ and what that technology can do for your web application. He writes examples of a COM+ component in Visual Basic and shows the user how to register/load the component into memory along with utilizing the functionality of them in an Active Server Page. Homer further explores the features of Windows 2000 by introducing the features of Active Directory and explaining/demonstrating how ADSI can connect an Active Server Page to the Active Directory. The book goes into further detail on enterprise level topics by discussing how CDO interfaces with Microsoft Exchange Server. Using CDO, a developer can access all of users Exchange account information including mail, contacts, calendar, etc. The book ends with performance and security issues for web applications running on a Windows 2000 Server and how an administrator should configure a Windows 2000 Server for maximum performance and security.

The software/technologies the book uses are based on products/technologies developed by Microsoft. Since Active Server Pages is a Microsoft technology, it would be reasonable to use only Microsoft products/technologies. However, in the real world, many businesses have heterogeneous environments with Oracle database servers and JavaScript web developers. The fact that this book only exposes the reader to vendor-specific technologies could be a down fall, however creates a centralized focus for the reader.

This book covers a wide spectrum of advanced knowledge with Active Server Pages, however is completely based around Microsoft technologies. Several other authors composed this book, which helps the reader get a dynamic flavor of knowledge from chapter to chapter. Any intermediate/advanced web developer, interested in enterprise web application development, should purchase a copy of this book for reference purposes.

Being an enterprise web developer, I found this book to be the absolute best in its field. It covers a very wide spectrum of fields any web developer working with Microsoft web technology should know, including ADO, ADSI, ASP, CDO, COM+, error handling, MSMQ, Windows DNA, XML, and a whole lot more (note that this book is primarily oriented at web developers who's target platform is Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0, but I also found it to be extremely useful for use on Windows NT 4.0 and IIS 4.0, since the authors clearly indicate features that are new to Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0). The writing style is absolutely excellent and gives clear tips on code optimization and performance. I have read literally dozens of different books on these subjects, and none has come close to this one. Although this book is not for beginners, it is, in my opinion, good for anyone who wants to advance their career on the web or become an web developer. This is definitely a book you will want to read from cover to cover, and use as a reference. At just about any price, it's a steal.

Hi, I found Active Server Pages to be a pivotal book. The book was comprehensive and well written. The authors know their subject material. I write responses to question and answers for numerous questions on relating to active server pages and found topics in the book to informational; especially the chapters on com+. The book explained how com+ work, why it is the next evolutionary step in object oriented websites, and how to create your first com+ component. The introduction to Window Scripting Components was excellent. I found the information easy to understand, testable, and empowering. Also, if you new to Collaboration Data Object CDO (email messaging) this book is worth the money. In the past I've used simple mapi to do all my email which is actual fairly easy to implement and use. With CDO one can learn how to access/transmit email through an exchange server or smtp server. The CDO section was really cool, filled with numerous examples and easy to understand instructions. The whole book seems dedicated to show how microsoft technology can be used to build scalable web sites. There are a few thought provoking discussions on the current technology used to build scalable site, such as load balancing, windows 2000 dna, and com+. The only downside to the book was the sparse discussions and examples of how xml and ado and server side asp could be used to build a website. I'm not critical, this is a very complex area of discussion and instruction. I hope to hear from you.

Want to learn to build your own amazon.com? It's in this book. You'll have to be proficient with ansi-SQL and/or ADO 2.0 in order to really take advantage of the information presented here. But overall it's a well presented book on ASP. If you plan to buy this and want to build true interactive sites with full database integration, pick up ADO 2.0 Programmer's Reference and Instant SQL Programming also from WROX Press, then you'll have a strong book base to build powerful web sites such as amazon.com. The only drawback is its concentration on VBScript rather than ECMAscript (aka JavaScript). Try and stay away from the VBScript presented in this book and use ECMAScript for the examples instead. The reason is because Microsoft and Netscape are finally agreeing on ECMAScript standards that will be much easier to translate into Client-side Cross-browser code if you use it for Server-side code now. As ECMAscript matures it will present a much more flexible environment to work in than VBScript will (much the same way that C compared to Visual Basic does now). I don't have a book recommendation for ECMAscript, I haven't found a good reference yet, the info on the web has been my resource. But if you're desparate for a reference, WROX Press also has a handbook called Instant JavaScript that isn't too bad, but has lots of room more improvement. Happy Building! Ciao -C

Having developed solutions in ASP and found many other books lacking I was most impressed with this one. A lot of books seem to me to simply rehash the manuals without any attempt at showing you how the programs work.

In these days of "online manuals" (on CD), how are we supposed to read when we are away from our systems. Try reading a CD ROM in the bath !!

This book actually manages to explain Transaction Server, Message Queue, and the finer points of ADO, ActiveX, SQL Server, and advanced ASP design without patronising (no chapter headed - "What is HTML?").

The authors of this book (and there are several) have slightly different styles but there is no irritating jar as you read through it.

The page layout is excellent with clear explanations of how the text works with different styles used to denote the block currently being discussed.

If you are new to ASP but understand the basics of VBScript or JScript this is the book you need if you want to move your sites into MTS or use the Message Queue. Simple explanations of how to move business rules (long blocks of ASP Script that define a solution) into Visual Basic components are clear and offer real world solutions.

I recommend this book - it's heavy (you can't read this one in the bath easily !) - but you can't have everything !!

After wasting quite a bit of money looking for an ASP book that I can use as a self-teaching guide, I finally found it! (Serves me right for not reading amazon.com reviews earlier.) This book has it all: clear, efficient descriptions; excellent real-world examples; and fantastic on-line support from the publisher. Within a day I had a firm grasp concepts that so many other books had failed to properly convey. Within a week I was deep in the process of designing a web-based front-end for our corporate data warehouse. What set this book apart for me is its thoroughness. Rather than assuming you have an intricate knowledge of ODBC, Java, VBScript, IIS, NT security and HTML, it briefly touches on each of these topics and tells you everything you need to know to make your web site work.