Book Review - Maximizing ASP.NET
Book Review of Maximizing ASP.NET by Jeffrey Putz
I've never read a full sized technical book from cover to cover in under a week until I picked up Maximizing ASP.NET. I couldn't put it down, every lunch break and into the wee hours of the morning I took every opportunity I could to consume this book.
Not only was the subject matter exactly what I have been searching for the last couple of years, but Jeff Putz covered this topic with expertise, great code examples and just plain great writing.
I've come from a Classic ASP and PHP background so, although I use ASP.NET daily from an administrative level, I haven't felt that I had a full grasp of Object-Oriented (OO) development. Over time I've picked up more and more but I've been searching for a good book to piece it all together and fill in the blanks. I've read bits and pieces from other books and understood the concepts of OO programming but I wanted to know from an ASP.NET perspective.
Putz's book is well balanced and jumps right into OO development, the concepts and specifically how they relate to ASP.NET. Both C# and VB code examples are generous, clear and concise. I've read plenty of books where some of the chapters are worth reading but many others were better left out. Not with Maximizing ASP.NET. Every chapter is a must read. There were a couple sections about the HTTPModules and HTTPHandlers that I found better reference material than reading word for word, but even then I couldn't put the book down.
Another thing I appreciate about this book is that it is organized in a way that makes it a great reference book. Finding information again is quick and easy whether from using the Index at the back, skimming the well organized Table of Contents at the front or flipping to the highlighted sections that I marked up when reading the book the first time.
Like any book, this one isn't for everyone. Putz assumes that the reader has a general understanding of ASP.NET and web development already and doesn't spend time covering the basics. While I found this enhanced the book and allowed him to jump right into his intended subject matter, a newbie to ASP.Net would not want this as their first book. That said, this is a easy to read book and is great for anyone's library after an ASP.NET foundation has been laid.
I can't say enough how much I appreciated Maximizing ASP.NET, in fact before I even finished reading the book I had ordered a half dozen copies of the book for people I thought would benefit from it. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is serious about OO programming and wants a thorough, accurate and easy to read resource.