Scott Hanselman

browse by category or date

Book - Professional ASP.NET 3.5: in C# and VB

January 15, '08 Comments [17] Posted in ASP.NET | Microsoft | Programming
Sponsored By

Professional ASP.NET 3.5: in C# and VBSeriously, 1728 pages? We couldn't drop a page or two? Nope. In keeping with our strategy that a person who buys our book should be able to beat off attackers with it, we're keeping it big and phat.

Coming in a few weeks, it's Professional ASP.NET 3.5 and it's heavy as heck. And, it's insanely cheap right now, only $32.99 at Amazon. Amazing.

We've added many hundreds of pages, new chapters, new samples and new coverage. It took a LONG time and it was very tiring.

Here's some text from the back cover:

  • Thorough coverage of how to implement ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX and the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit
  • An introduction to LINQ and many LINQ examples throughout the book side-by-side with the related SQL example to show you the differences between the two
  • Enhanced coverage of XML use in ASP.NET including the new XML Schema Designer Add-on, LINQ to XML, LINQ for XML examples, and XSLTC.exe, a command-line XSLT compiler
  • A new chapter on CSS design for ASP.NET and the Visual Web Developer CSS design tools
  • A new chapter on the ASP.NET lifecycle and architecture best-practices
  • Increased coverage of ASP.NET with SQL Server 2005 and Oracle as the databases
  • Coverage of enhancing your ASP.NET applications with Microsoft’s new Silverlight for stunning video and animation uses
  • Coverage of Scott Hanselman’s famous productivity tool picks for developers to help make you a more productive ASP.NET developer
  • Updated coverage of migrating applications for previous ASP.NET versions

The whole team worked very hard with Bill taking the lion's share of the work. We include examples in both C# and VB. We've also added parallel samples in the XML chapter that show how to accomplish a task with LINQ to XML as well as with System.XML, and Devin's added an all new chapter on LINQ with new LINQ samples throughout. We re-tested every code sample on Visual Studio 2008 and Vista, we re-shot every screenshot and we included IIS7 coverage on both Vista and Windows Server 2008.

As far as I know, it'll be published on Feb 14th, no matter what Amazon's page says. Enjoy.

« Hanselminutes Podcast 96 - Starting Smal... | Blog Home | Your Opinion Matters - Screencast Techni... »

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. I am a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook twitter subscribe
About   Newsletter
Sponsored By
Hosting By
Dedicated Windows Server Hosting by ORCS Web
Comments [17]
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:50:30 AM UTC
Nice. Congrats Scott on the new book!
Keith Rull
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:08:52 AM UTC
Hey Now Scott,
Sure looks like some good content.
Hanselminutes Fan,
Catto
Catto
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:19:05 AM UTC
Congrats and good luck!
Jeff Handley
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 2:59:33 AM UTC
I want to buy your book but I'm in "El Salvador",How can I buy your book?
Jimmy
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 10:37:14 AM UTC
I've just pre-ordered this from the UK Amazon site, I'm amazed that its only £16.98 - often we lose out on the exchange rate here in the UK.
Phil Fearon
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:53:24 PM UTC
Ah, so this is where half of the rain forsest went! Just kidding, this sounds promising. Keep up the great work.
James
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 2:57:53 PM UTC
I NEED IT. RUSSIAN PROGRAMMING WORLD IS WAITING FOR THIS BOOK. I'm 2nd year student and Fujitsu employee, I think I'll order it immediately after I get salary)
Polovnikov Vasily
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:45:00 PM UTC
Good job. Always wonder how you have the time to do everything you do.

I guess it's big because you have both VB & C# code in the same edition. I am not sure why you guys made this decision when most other authors separate these and books like yours are heavy in code samples.



Abdu
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:38:04 PM UTC
Congratulations on your new book!
Andrei Rinea
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 11:31:00 AM UTC
HI! Love to get that book... but recently i ordered two books from amazon and had to pay 172 euro just from importing taxes and crap... tha books only cost like 70euro... :( this was a really a pain.

Here in Portugal we can't buy books they are just to expensive.... :(

But still Congratulations to all of you who buy the book...
Rui Lima
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 4:38:18 PM UTC
Rui, wow I'm sorry, that seems abnormally high. Did you order from the US or from the UK? You should probably get it from a Portuguese Book Store in these cases, or from the UK.

EU customers should order from their local retailers whenever possible. For example on Amazon UK, the book is list priced by our UK arm at £33.99 and discounted to £16.98
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-ASP-NET-3-5-C-VB/dp/0470187573.
UK delivery is free, I'm sure there's a delivery charge to Portugal but I'd think the import cost to another EU country from UK would be lower if anything.
Scott Hanselman
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 6:05:47 PM UTC
I'm sure that this is a fine book and a worthy edition to anyone's bookshelf, but in general those giant Wrox books tend to be fairly terrible. Obviously I don't have the time or inclination to read a 2000 page book cover-to-cover, nor would nearly anyone, so I assume they are intended as a reference. But if I need a reference, I have the entire internet at my fingertips, which has significantly better searching than bound paper.

People buy the giant books because they see how big they are and assume they are jam packed with information. And then they realize all that information is more easily obtained on the internet and decide computer books are useless. And then publishers wonder why the computer book industry is dying...

Shorter, readable books might, ultimately, sell better. One of my favorite Computer Books is the C++ Programmers Handbook by Kalev. 300 pages, short enough I can whip through it once a year and refresh my mind on C++ minutiae I may have forgotten. All the long reference-y books I chucked in the dumpster once I realized I never, ever used them.

Ah well.

Er, but again, I'm sure this is a fine book and the exception to the rule.
Matthew Henry
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 6:18:38 PM UTC
Matthew - LOL. I hear what you're saying and have had the same experience with some large books. The internet, and this blog (plug, plug) are good references, totally. This 2000 page book is not 2000 pages of pure prose, but also code samples, screenshots, diagrams, etc.

You're assuming that the internet reference articles has already put all these new technologies into context, checked, doublechecked and talked to the product teams about the right way to do things. That's where the work in a book like this goes. We might spend 2 weeks vetting a code sample to make sure it's the correct way to be thinking about a new technology, and we do that by talking to PMs, coders, testers, MVPs, managers, whoever was involved in that tech (and it's usually a lot of people.)

Just my 2 bytes.
Scott Hanselman
Thursday, January 17, 2008 5:36:34 PM UTC
I am amazed and pleasantly surprised that the UK price is only £16.98 - that is a bargain.
Lee
Friday, January 18, 2008 10:25:24 PM UTC
Hey Scott,
I almost purchased your book last month (2.0 version of this upcoming book) until I heard about the release of this book. I have a question regarding this book.

Is this new book going to be pretty similar with the previous book except with the addition of 3.5 technology...or is it worth getting the 2.0 book still along with this book? I like the previous version of this book from reading a few short pages but I wanted to know if this new edition will satisfy both. Thanks.
Dennis
Friday, January 18, 2008 10:38:19 PM UTC
There are a few chapters, like mobile, that are removed from this book, and will move online. You'll still be able to get to them, but this is similar + several hundred new pages and new code and new sceenshorts.
Scott Hanselman
Saturday, February 16, 2008 2:24:19 PM UTC
Any update on the release date of this book? I believe it was scheduled for Feb 14.
Anonymous
Comments are closed.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.