by Chas Profitt
4/10/2004

Murach's ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET [^] by Doug Lowe and Anne Prince is a in depth training and reference book for ASP.NET programming using VB.NET. The book builds upon Murach's previous books Murach's beginning visual basic .NET [^] and Murach's VB.NET database programming [^] and covers more advanced concepts for programming ASP.NET pages. The book covers the use of session states, cookies, database classes, object classes, user validation controls, application state, developing user controls, the crystal reports viewer and security. As with the previous books in the series the book is very complete. The only fault I can find is the failure to include instructions on how to use Access databases and XML files as data sources. While that topic was covered very well in the database book it would have been nice to have a brief overview of the subject specifically for ASP.NET applications.

The book is written in the same style as the previous two books I have reviewed which makes it easy to learn and useful after as a reference. All the code is well documented with syntax explained in full prior to the code being used. In each segment of the book the complete code for the application you are working on is included even if it was originally introduced several chapters earlier. There are errors in the book and the website has an addendum for those. I did manage to find an error that was not already noted though on page.

This book enabled me to write custom websites for two customers which is exactly what I wanted it to help me with. The sections that assisted the process the most for me where the ones on web application security and database classes. No previous book did such an excellent job of demonstrating how to do those two things.

Overall I give this book a 9 out of 10 with one point being deducted for not including some examples on how to use XML files or Access databases as data sources for web pages.

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