StrivingLife presents ...

Having read Imar Spaanjaar's Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB (review), I was expecting a number of good things from this book.

Imar's book is really great in that he shows you how to build a Web application with ASP.NET 3.5. However, with Professional ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB, you instead get 1500+ page reference book.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing, but that does mean that if you want to get started with ASP.NET, pick up Imar's book first, or better still, too.

That said, this also means that if you're the type to read a book from beginning to end, you'll have a real 'joy' reading this book. That's because after a few chapters you'll notice that the author's clearly intended for people to skip around the book. This is evident because they'll discuss something in one chapter, and then reiterate it at the beginning of the next in such a way that suggests they assume you didn't just read this in the last chapter. But, that is good if you consider this as a reference book.

The other thing that will strike you is the number of typos in this book. I wasn't keeping track of all of them, such as words melding together, hard returns where there didn't need to be, incorrect figures, etcetera, but I did make note of, and submit, 29 errors in this book (25 of those from page 579 on - I wasn't keeping serious track before then). If you hear that they've done a special edition of this book, or a second edition, just spend the (extra) money and pick it up. Luckily, the code seems pretty clean.

Having said all that, I still think Professional ASP.NET 3.5 is an excellent reference book, and one that I'll be keeping on my shelf. Almost every one of the 34 chapters had at least one valuable thing in them, and in most cases, they had many. While some topics are skimmed over, they give a very indepth look to existing and new features, providing sources to further reference as needed (most of which are free Microsoft references online).

Together with Imar's Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in ASP.NET 3.5. I would also recommend this reference book (last time, I promise :) ) to anyone who's worked with previous versions of .NET, and just needs to know how to advance their skills.

Additional errata for Professional ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB:

Page 579, last sentence: Welcome.html should be Welcome.htm

Page 581, first paragraph: Welcome.html should be Welcome.htm (x2) and Start.html should be Start.htm

Page 628: Figure 13-1 is the incorrect image.

Page 630, last sentence: The 't' in 'the' should be capitalized (first word in the sentence).

Page 690, second paragraph, 3rd line: The first instance of 'Finance' should be 'Markets'

Page 720, first pargraph: 'Shown in bold' should be 'highlighted'

Page 783: Figure 16-10 is incorrect.

Page 879: Figure 18-10, third div box is incorrect (closing line should be one line down).

Page 976, first full paragraph, second sentence: Missing 'of' - 'using a mouse instead *of* typing'

Page 977, first sentence: unnecessary 'see'

Page 1004, first paragraph: I don't believe that IE is the only browser that supports this. Granted, you'll be prompted in Firefox, but I believe you can still authenticate ...

Page 1046: 'C# - Default.asp' should be 'C# - Default.aspx'

Page 1186: first paragraph in Figure 25-15 does not match the code

Page 1204, third line: 'Controlproject' should be 'Control project'

Page 1206, last line in note: 'propertys' should be 'properties'

Page 1210, 2nd line: By Listing 26-6 the text means 26-10.

Page 1210, 2nd to last paragraph: By Listing 26-1 the text means 26-10.

Page 1276: Figure 27-1 refers to IIS7, but it seems this should be IIS5/6/7 classic

Page 1288: Figure 27-5 and 27-6 are incorrect. -5 should be -6, and the real 27-5 is MIA.

Page 1345: Results of Listing 29-11 have an incorrect xmlns value.

Page 1389, 5th paragraph, 2nd sentence: missing '? '

Page 1406, first sentence: IntelliSense should have a capital 'I'

Page 1500, second sentence: "You'll find *them* ..."

Page 1529, second paragraph: dash is unneeded.

Page 1532, 1st paragraph: The production server is drive Y, not Z.

Some errata for 978-0-470-18757-9, Professional ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB:

pg 247, second to last sentence on the page: <h3> should be <h1>.

pg 253: Figure 5-13 is incorrect.

pg 487: Figure 9-12 is incorrect.

pg 527, second to last sentence on the page: Listing 10-13 contains no highlighted text.

I was expecting more errata to be listed. I guess I'll have to start writing down more of the errors as I find them instead of just grumbling ... ;)

I've also got one for 978-0-470-18759-3, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB:

pg 372, description column for varchar / nvarchar: Shouldn't nchar be nvarchar?