Amazon.co.uk Review
Active Server Pages are generated on the fly in response to requests from users. ASP itself is strongly associated with Microsoft IIS but, as author Greg Buczek points out early on, such dynamically generated pages can be produced by many server side technologies.
ASP Developer's Guide concentrates entirely on Microsoft ASP technologies using IIS, VBScript and ADO extensively. This makes sense as these technologies are designed to work together.
Unusually, this book isn't project based, although the last 120 pages or so do describe a product catalogue, shopping cart and customer support database. Mostly, it's concerned with explaining the intricacies of IIS as used for ASP. This is sorely needed material. Using IIS to create and manage dynamic pages is non-trivial. After the introductory material Greg Buczek uses each chapter to introduce, explain and demonstrate each aspect of ASP. Each area is liberally sprinkled with working VBScript code snippets, including the odd gotcha and neat examples of good practice. For example, using the Option Explicit to override VBScripts default action of enabling ad hoc variable creation and usage. The section on cookies is particularly valuable and should be required reading for Web authors. Greg Buczek is a big fan of cookies and gives many examples of ways in which they can do good work, but he also warns against relying on them completely as so many Web users routinely block or delete them.
ASP Developers Guide is lucid, organised and written with the enthusiasm you'd expect from an MCSD. Some will wonder why, for a technology which is supposed to make life simpler, ASP seems so much more complex than Perl and CGI. Still, if you're planning to work with ASP, though, you won't find a better text.--Steve Patient
Book Description
With this serious developer's guide, the perfect companion volume to Greg Buczek's best-selling "Instant ASP Scripts" book, you will quickly gain a solid foundation for developing Active Server Pages in a professional environment. Included is comprehensive coverage of IIS, ADO, CDO and creating your own components. Plus, the book shows you how to create an entire product catalog, shopping cart and customer customization solution.
Whether you are seeking introductory or in-depth knowledge of ASP, this guide fits the bill. Covering everything from the basics and development tools to scripting and debugging, it is the ideal reference for Web site developers and network administrators alike.
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