Beginning ASP.NET in C# From Novice to Professional, not to be confused with Beginning ASP.NET in C# which is an entirely different book, is aimed at reasonably experienced developers who may have done some website work, hopefully something in C, C++ or Java and are ready to get down and dirty with ASP.NET.

Product	Beginning ASP.NET in C# From Novice to Professional
From	APress
	Excellent coverage, clear explanations
	Nothing Major

Things start well with a brisk overview of the .NET system, a quick run through of C# and a discussion on how to install Internet Information Server and the .NET framework. The latter is most useful for those new to this area and something most books on the subject ignore. On the other hand, the section on C# as a language is a bit too light. However, in our view, if you need to learn C#, you should buy a C# book!

The bulk of the book is made up of a well structured series of chapters, each digging deeper in to the subject at hand. Web Forms get a good look along with many of the controls you can put on them. Most people will probably be using Visual Studio.NET for their development work and the book covers that next as well as Microsoft's free and rather good Web Matrix tool.

From here on, the book covers the all important state management, ADO.NET, error handling and files. The ADO.NET section is good and covers the basics as well as looking at datagrids, the repeater control and other technologies designed to make your life easier.

The latter chapters fall more firmly into the professional category with web services, components, custom controls and security. One section we particularly liked was on caching and performance monitoring.

For us though, the best section was the coverage of the ASP.NET Starter Kits. These are free Microsoft supplied examples of building a quite complex site using ASP.NET and the related technologies. As the author, Matthew MacDonald notes, Microsoft have not exactly pushed these or explained them as well as they might but they are a very useful resource. Luckily this book fills in the gaps and provides some truly valuable information on these examples.

The usual slew of appendices includes notes on configuration files used by ASP.NET and HTML Server Controls.

Overall, we found the pace of the book to be excellent. The explanations were clear without getting too bogged down in arcane details. You should still find 99% of what you need for most projects in this book. The code listings weren't too long and numerous illustrations and diagrams helped reinforce structures and technologies. The book also manages to drop in a good few tips and side discussions and comparisons where different options exist for a given task. As such, this book lives up to its title and should help anyone get up to speed and then some with ASP.NET. Highly recommended.