Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) Review

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Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) Review[Updated for Second Edition]
A beginning PHP book, not a beginning programming book. The subtitle, 'From Novice to Professional', can be a tad misleading for the novice coder. A beginning programming book covers a lot of material that this book assumes the reader already understands. Many software books include a 'Who Is This Book For' section that offers some guidance on the suitable reader knowledge level, not this one.
That said, I found this book to be very helpful. The sections on installing and configuring Apache, PHP and MySQL certainly saved me many hours of reading the online documentation and tweaking of settings while setting up my local test bed. That, in itself, made me a very happy camper. The author goes on to cover the various aspects from the basics of the PHP language and class libraries to topics like Authentication, Security, Session Handlers and eMail functionality that help anyone new to PHP setup some fairly sophisticated site capabilities.
The second edition has been supplemented with an added 200 pages, including a new section on PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository). This is a wealth of prewritten classes and packages that can be used to add even more sophisticated functionality to the novice's web development toolbox. The author demonstrates several of the more prominent packages.
The second edition has greatly beefed up with additional coverage of MySQL 5, including chapters on stored procedures, triggers and the PHP mysqli extension (all missed in the first edition). Most of the examples offered are clean and general enough to be useful templates for the reader's tailoring.
My suggestion for novices to PHP is read through chapter 9, then skip to the various sections that solve specific problems being faced or are of particular interest, including installing and configuring your local test bed.
Bottom line, the first edition was a good book for intermediate to veteran programmers looking for a quick tutorial on PHP (circa version 5.0); the second edition is even better. Novice programmers should ensure that they have a full understanding of the basics of programming (and OOP) before attempting it. I would now use this book to teach a class on PHP.
P-)Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) Overview

Written for the budding web developer searching for a powerful, low-cost solution for building flexible, dynamic web sites.
Essentially three books in one: provides thorough introductions to the PHP language and the MySQL database, and shows you how these two technologies can be effectively integrated to build powerful websites.
Provides over 500 code examples, including real-world tasks such as creating an auto-login feature, sending HTML-formatted e-mail, testing password guessability, and uploading files via a web interface.
Updated for MySQL 5, includes new chapters introducing triggers, stored procedures, and views.



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Automating Linux and Unix System Administration (Expert's Voice in Linux) Review

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Automating Linux and Unix System Administration (Expert's Voice in Linux) ReviewI bought this book expecting it would describe and demonstrate a variety of automation methods and tools. The book surprised me -- pleasantly. The majority of the book focuses on CFEngine (www.cfengine.org) and how to use it to manage server configurations, deliver applications automatically to those servers, and enforce a consist policy across the servers.
The book goes into some depth demonstrating how cfengine works. It has chapters on configuration, setting up a production environment, setting up automated installations, and delivering applications using cfengine.
There are smaller chapters on SSH, Nagios (and using CFengine to deliver it), and improving server security using cfengine.
The book is about 400 pages and is packed with content. There are interesting facts and config bits in every chapter.
With the exception of the cfengine manuals, there are no other books on the market today which provide a detailed, comprehensive look at cfengine...until now. If you are using, will use, or have questions about what CFengine can do, get this book. I'm happy I did.
Automating Linux and Unix System Administration (Expert's Voice in Linux) OverviewThis is the second edition of a title that succeeded before its time - this second edition comes at a timely juncture for Linux administrators and will become a key reference.If Linux administrators want to build a small or medium-sized network or datacenter, this is the book to show them how to do it by automating the build process. Linux datacenters have multiplied over the last 5 years and literally thousands of Linux system administrators on all 5 continents need this information.

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Pro JavaScript Techniques Review

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Pro JavaScript Techniques Review§
"Pro JavaScript Techniques" is definitely for experienced and advanced scripters. The level of abstraction is high in this treatment of the latest trends of JavaScript. If you are looking for ready-made scripts to solve some specific problem in your site or application, you are looking for a different sort of book.
If you have ever gone to Douglas Crockford's site to learn about advanced concepts in JavaScript, and withdrew dazed and abused by his obtuse examples -- but with a conviction that there was something valuable to learn there -- this book is for you.
The author states, and I agree, that understanding Chapter 2, "Object Oriented JavaScript" is the key to the puzzle. "The phrase object-oriented JavaScript is somewhat redundant, as the JavaScript language is completely object-oriented and is impossible to use otherwise. However, a common shortcoming of most new programmers is to write their code functionally without any context or grouping."
The chapter contains a clear exposition of what the author means by "context or grouping." In fact, his concise but relevant example code to explain the distinction between privileged methods and static methods lit up all sorts of light bulbs in my head...Finally! :-)
Be aware that the author's approach has a particular bias in that it is often directed at the *programmer* coming into Web scripting. The idea is to make the JavaScripting world appear more like the programming languages already known. You learn "how to go about writing a variety of object-oriented code to suit anyone coming from another programming language."
This is a great book -- but not for all.
§Pro JavaScript Techniques OverviewJavaScript usage on the Web has changed in recent times, due to increased JavaScript support in web browsers, and new techniques coming to light. JavaScript is also now being looked on as a proper programming language, whereas in it's inception it was regarded as little more than a scripting toy.This book addresses all the points above in detail - modern browser support (including information on Internet Explorer 7), Object-Oriented JavaScript, testing and debugging, Unobtrusive JavaScript techniques using DOM Scripting, Ajax, creating and using blocks of reusable code, and looking towards the future of JavaScript.It backs up all the concepts with real world examples and full-blown case studies, and also includes several reference sections to allow developers to look up details quickly and easily.

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Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Web Development) Review

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Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Web Development) ReviewThe book is overall well written, however the series title is misleading. I could have easily labeled this 3 stars.
PROS:
- Well written. (Few tech authors have this skill)
- Overall good cover of the basics
- Full code is provided, author has a forum where he answers some questions.
- He shows good code practices
CONS:
- This book should be in the series: "From Novice to having some understanding". It does not cover ACL at all, and the cover of the basic Auth component is incredibly basic and lacking. Most of the examples are very simple, so you won't be getting to be a "Professional" with this book. The tile is ok "Beginning CakePHP" but by no means expect this book to cover in depth topics of challenging issues.
- The book is one big project that keeps adding on things - which is good. But the author decided to go for a Blog... Please another application? Pretty please? There are about a million blog tutorials out there, he could have gone the extra mile by giving us an interesting (i.e realistic) project. There is already a good blog tutorial on the cakephp.org site. Yes, the author does take the blog further in this book (he better, it's 300 pages) but still.
- Not the author's fault - but be warned that the book is for RC1 - and believe me, you will struggle figuring out why the provided code is not working and why so many errors (if you are using RC2 or beyond).
- All the examples except 1 are straight out of the box CAKEPHP built in things - which is fine, but real projects usually require you to stretch things, change some models to be used differently.
- The "Advanced features" chapter is a joke. It spends less than 1 page in most of those advance features. Basically, you are on your own. And a whopping of 6 pages on the forms helper. (Web applications live on forms, a whole book could be written on the topic).
I gave it 4 stars for being a clearly written book on CakePHP, but don't expect this book will be more than an introduction, with a few nice gems.Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Web Development) OverviewAll other attempts at translating CakePHP for new users are either too technical or lack enough information. This book is tailored for those new to Cake and who want a thorough tutorial. The biggest advantage for reading this book is that it really stands alone in the repertoire of CakePHP documentation, and little work is scheduled to become available anytime soon.It's to a PHP developer's advantage to try out Cake and to get a favorable introduction to the framework, which is precisely what this book provides.Beginning CakePHP is one of the first if not the first book in the market that leads the reader through extensive web application development in CakePHP, one of the leading popular growing open source Web frameworks. It gives a how-to approach to Cake rather than a dictionary-type reference, that culminates in an extensive practical blogging application example.

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Pro Silverlight 3 in C# (Expert's Voice in Silverlight) Review

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Pro Silverlight 3 in C# (Expert's Voice in Silverlight) ReviewThis book is by far the best resource for Silverlight 3.0. In this version the author added a whopping 185 pages to the last edition. He added chapters on Data Controls, separated the Styles, Templates, and Custom Controls into two separate chapters name Styles and Behaviors, and Templates and Custom Controls, and added a new chapter on Navigation.
I have bought 3 other books on Silverlight 3, and put together they only contain about 1/8 of the value of this book (you can see which ones they are by Googling "Shiny Turds Books that do not Cut the Mustard").
It starts out with an introduction that covers the Visual Studio Silverlight environment. He then gives a short introduction to XAML. The introductions really help those who have no experience get rolling right away.
The author covers every out of the box element in detail (including the DataGrid control and a little on the DataForm control), and includes a nice reference for where the element can be found in the book. He also covers styles and templates, brushes and transforms, shapes and geometries, animation, and layout containers.
The book covers out-of-browser applications, assembly caching, networking, multithreading, isolated storage, browser integration, media and deep zoom, wcf services, the application model, and dependency properties and routed events.
One of the things I like best about the book is it includes a lot of references and material on the Silverlight Toolkit.
The book is very readable for those that like to read cover to cover, but it also makes a great reference.
The downloadable code is very usable and very complete.
This is a must have book for any developer working with Silverlight 3.0.
Pro Silverlight 3 in C# (Expert's Voice in Silverlight) OverviewSilverlight 3 is the latest iteration of Microsoft's cross-browser technology for creating rich user experiences on the web. Like its predecessor, Silverlight 2, it rides atop the .NET Framework for maximum ease of use and coding efficiency. The new technology carries forward much of the work that has been done before and augments it in many important respects, including support for H.264 video, major improvements to the graphics engine (including true 3D rendering) and much richer data-binding options for interfacing with other applications.This second edition of Pro Silverlight in C# carries forward the all the key features that have made the first edition an immediate success. Most notably the book presents all artwork, screenshots and code in full-colour; provides readers with a comprehensive theoretical grounding, and illustrates all concepts with an abundance of fully-worked practical examples.

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User Interface Design for Programmers Review

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User Interface Design for Programmers ReviewJoel is a good writer who happens to be a programmer. That alone is enough to reccommend this one-of-a-kind book. His website contains tons of insightful, opinionated essays, and most of the time he's right, whether his topic is design, business stragegy, HR, or coding techniques. He's an ex-Microsoft employee who's saavy enough to know what MS does right and what they don't.
In this book, much of which is available at his site, he's taking an approach that I don't think anyone else has: why UI design matters to programmers. He's not talking to experienced visual desingers, or HCI people, or interaction desingers or what have you. He's talking to programmers, the folks who will actually write lines of code. This book, in a quick 150 pages, shows programmers why interaction designers will spend, say, two days worrying about a couple of words or the placement of two buttons.
Like Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think", it's a somewhat lightweight treatment of the topic for an experienced UI desinger, but you'd be foolish to pass it up for that reason. This, along with Krug would be a great book for Project Managers or senior staff wondering what all the fuss about "usability" really means. Where Jakob Nielsen's preachy fussiness can bore you to tears, Joel and Krug will make you eager to put their ideas into practice.
Any company that can get its programmers, managers, and designers on the same page about the still under-appreciated value of UI design (and the analysis that goes into it) will find they can make better products faster.User Interface Design for Programmers Overview
Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design-the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead-strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.

In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.

In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makesuser interfacedesign easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works.


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PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice Review

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PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice ReviewFact of the matter is that PHP5 is a serious enterprise level development system. This book takes it seriously and presents both practical and architectural material at a level that used to be reserved for J2EE and .NET works. This relatively short book is packed full of well written and insightful content. It stars with the basics of PHP5 OO programming with detail about the mistakes in PHP4 that have now been rectified. That is taken all the way through advanced topics like reflection.
The author then switches gears and gets into the design of object oriented applications. Now that we have the right tools, how we should use them to make better systems, right? UML is covered, and so are design patterns.
The later chapters of the book cover solid software engineering practices, like version control and unit testing, amongst other.
Not only will this book give you new ideas at a coding level, it will also open your mind as an engineer and get you headed in a direction toward architecture and large scale application design.
An excellent book. A must have for any serious PHP developer.PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice OverviewPHP 5 Objects, Patterns, Practice is a practical design and management book. It explains object-oriented programming in PHP 5, the latest version of PHP. This book explores the principles underlying design patterns (principally those patterns collected by the 'Gang of Four') and presents a range of patterns in a PHP context. This book also examines tools and practices that exist which underpin good software design, including unit testing, documentation, version control and automated build.

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Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) Review

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Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) ReviewThis book is a solid, practically-oriented introduction to Django, but be warned: the code in the book fails with Django 1.0. This is an important caveat because you cannot progress through the exercises unless you know the gotchas and how to modify the code accordingly. Some of the incompatibilities are quite major.
I found that the book pitches a bit low for an experienced developers and it's thin on discussion of the meat of what's going on under the hood. A minor issue with the book is the author's insistence on "admonishing" you literally every second page. You see, calling things "admonitions" one of the secret signs that Python nerds use to show that they're part of that very special little gang of elite hardcore "Pythonistas". For the rest of us, it's just grating (or maybe I'm just not dope enough to be a Pythonista, yo. Y'know what I'm saying, bro? Word.)
Issues aside, I do like its very hands-on approach and I'm betting that the next edition will be a 4.5 star book.Practical Django Projects (Pratical Projects) Overview
Build a Django content management system, blog, and social networking site with James Bennett as he introduces the popular Django framework. You'll work through the development of each project, implementing and running the applications while learning new features along the way.

Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today's most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Python developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Django, a very popular open source web framework whose stated goal is to "make it easier to build better web applications more quickly with less code.”

Practical Django Projects is the first book to introduce this popular framework by way of a series of real–world projects.

What you'll learn
Capitalize upon Django's well–defined framework architecture to build web applications faster than ever before
Learn by doing by working through the creation of three real–world projects, including a content management system, blog, and social networking site
Build user–friendly web sites with well–structured URLs, session tracking, and syndication options
Let Django handle tedious tasks such as database interaction while you focus on building compelling applications

Who this book is for
Web developers seeking to use the powerful Django framework to build powerful web sites.


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The Definitive Guide to symfony (Expert's Voice in Open Source) Review

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The Definitive Guide to symfony (Expert's Voice in Open Source) ReviewThe power of this amazing framework is truly revealed after you see how much thought has gone into its planning and documentation. I have been using the Symfony framework for six months with great success, but this book has given me a new perspective on Symfony's capabilities. PHP has been a mainstay in my web design business for almost 10 years, and I've used a number of different libraries and frameworks over the years. But nothing I've tried has come close to Symfony. The framework takes out the drudgery of common tasks like form processing and database/object interactions; and it does it in a way that is highly configurable. This book and framework have made web programming fun again.
Each chapter walks you through an important framework element from installation and setup to advanced features (cache control, plugin development, optimizing applications). It's written by two of the framework's lead developers. I would consider it a must-have for anyone using the Symfony framework.The Definitive Guide to symfony (Expert's Voice in Open Source) OverviewWeb application frameworks are one of the today's hottest topics, presenting developers with proven solutions for building applications faster than ever. Spurred on by the enormous success of Ruby on Rails, frameworks are being built in a variety of other languages, with the bulk of activity surrounding PHP. While numerous framework projects are well under way, none are as mature nor as popular as Symfony (http://www.symfony-project.com/). Bundled with numerous tools for helping document, debug, and test your applications, and developed in a manner encouraging agile development principles, Symfony is sparking the imagination of thousands of developers around the globe.Authored by project and documentation leads Fabien Potencier and François Zaninotto, The Definitive Guide to Symfony serves as a complete guide to all aspects of Symfony. Readers are guided through fundamental concepts such as installation, configuration, and security, followed by thorough discussion of advanced concepts such as scaffolding, routing, caching, and internationalization. Accompanied by hundreds of practical code examples, this book will help readers quickly master rapid application development using this popular framework.

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Practical Rails Plugins (Expert's Voice in Web Development) Review

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Practical Rails Plugins (Expert's Voice in Web Development) ReviewI'm very surprised this book hasn't been reviewed, and while I've used it more as a reference - meaning that I didn't read it linearly - it is at once a book that I use more frequently than the others. If I'm mocking up an idea, or just trying to get something done, usually I'll either grab this book off the shelf and see if there is a quick solution, or fall back to one of the Rails Recipe books from Pragmatic Programmers. Rails plug-ins come, and Rails plug-ins go, but in peeking real quick, most all of the presented plug-ins are still good choices right now (January '09) ...Practical Rails Plugins (Expert's Voice in Web Development) OverviewThe meteoric ascent in popularity of the Rails framework is in large part due to the enormous productivity gains it has to offer. One reason for this productivity is a feature known as plugins, which enable developers to extend the Rails framework in a variety of interesting ways. What's more, these plugins can be shared with other Rails developers, and accordingly a vibrant plugin community has blossomed.Practical Rails Plugins is the first book to comprehensively discuss Rails plugins, discussing many of the most popular plugins in the context of four real-world projects.

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Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: From Novice to Professional Review

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Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: From Novice to Professional ReviewI have purchased (what feels like) hundreds of computer related books from Amazon.com (including other ASP.NET books), and this is the first one that I have ever felt the need to comment on.
This is just a great book, in my opinion! I found the book to be very easy to read, and logical to follow - Matthew MacDonald's writing style is very effective in communicating technical information in a way that made it easy for me to understand.
I've been developing Windows client applications (VB/C#) for close to 10 years, and have "played around" with ASP.NET 2.0. I knew how to make some basic web apps work, but didn't really understand what was going on underneath the covers. I had a lot of questions that were answered and now have a lot more confidence going forward with creating ASP.NET apps.
As I mentioned, I had purchased ASP.NET books by different authors (for 1.1 and 2.0). Maybe I never gave those books a chance, but this is by far the best that I have come across.
Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: From Novice to Professional Overview
The most up–to–date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you'll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 guides you through Microsoft's technology for building dynamic web sites. This book will enable you to build dynamic web pages on the fly, and it assumes only the most basic knowledge of C#.

The book provides exhaustive coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from your first steps right up to the most advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and tuning your site for optimal performance. Within these pages, you'll find tips for "best practices” and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles you need to know in order to be effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will start you off on the track to building real–world web sites right from the beginning-rather than just faking it with simplified coding practices.

By the time you've finished the book, you will have mastered the core techniques and have all the knowledge you need to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.


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Beginning ASP.NET in VB .NET: From Novice to Professional Review

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Beginning ASP.NET in VB .NET: From Novice to Professional ReviewASP.Net is so different from ASP. I know that, having done Classic ASP for about 4 years now and ASP.Net from Beta1 onwards. And still this book changed the way I think of / do ASP.Net programming. The book can as well be titled "Object Oriented Approach to ASP.Net Programming". The author sticks strictly to best coding practices (than some easier way to code), goes thro most of the classes we will be using in ASP.Net and a lot more. He will go advanced but knows where to stop - telling you it's enouugh for ASP.Net (which I agree - I don't expect an ASP book to teach me .Net OOP tharoughly. I would rather turn to "OOP with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# Step by Step" by Robin A. Reynolds-Haertle or the forthcoming "Visual Basic .Net Object and Component Handbook" by Peter Vogel ). The author explains you as if he is working with you in a senior position and has a relentless style to drag you thro all of the features in-depth and their benefits that someone new to .Net programming may be scared. VB.Net is used in sample codes (he explains every new concept with code) but initially he gives a real good comparison of C# and VB.Net including how to do the same thing in both languages (And again if I want to learn C#, I don't want to learn from some ASP.Net book - I'd rather learn from "Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step" by John Sharp, Jon Jagger or "Programming C#, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly Windows)" by Jesse Liberty or "Programming Windows(r) with C# (Core Reference)" by Charles Petzold )
That said I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has been familiar with ASP and done some programming and want to learn ASP.Net completely, tharoughly.Beginning ASP.NET in VB .NET: From Novice to Professional Overview

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Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition Review

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Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition ReviewTHIS BOOK IS A COMPLETE SCAM! It should have been called Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 with VB 2005 (NOT ASP.NET 3.5 with VB 2008). Why? because there is no 3.5/2008 specific content in this book what-so-ever! I could not believe this while i was reading.
He spends a chapter discussing the VB language and syntax, non of which contain the new language features or changes in the VB language, all examples will work in VB 2005 without issue. In fact, there is not even a mention of LINQ, which is the most important part of the new VB 2008 (VB9) language. In fact, he goes further by giving us chapters and chapters on accessing data using outdated data access methods and SQL statements, non of which is necesssary anymore thanks to LINQ (WHICH HE MENTIONS NOTHING ABOUT).
It talks about the old, outdated controls of ASP.NET 2.0 which are no longer used or necessary due to the newer and much better controls available in asp.net 3.5 (in which he mentions NOTHING about).
I still can't believe apress would allow something like this to go through. This really is a book about ASP.NET 2.0 and VB 2005 ONLY. There really is nothing (NOTHING, not even one bit) of anything related to exclusive ASP.NET 3.5 or VB 2008 features and content!!!!
What a damn disappointment, when you are reading a book and realize you've practically read the exact same book 3 years ago and there is nothing new in it!
Thankfully I didn't buy it and downloaded a copy off the internet to review it before buying it.
THIS IS A COMPLETE SCAM, DO NOT BUY IT.
Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition OverviewThe most up-to-date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you'll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008 guides you through Microsoft's latest technology for building dynamic web sites. This book will enable you to build dynamic web pages on the fly, and it assumes only the most basic knowledge of VB 2008. The book provides exhaustive coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from your first steps right up to the most advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and tuning your site for optimal performance. Within these pages, you'll find tips for "best practices" and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles you need to know in order to be effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will start you off on the track to building real-world web sites right from the beginningrather than just faking it with simplified coding practices. By the time you've finished the book, you will have mastered the core techniques and have all the knowledge you need to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.

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Practical Common Lisp Review

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Practical Common Lisp ReviewI've been recommending this text to people who want to start learning Common Lisp since it was first available in draft form on the author's web site. Now that it's out in print I can enthusiastically recommend that anybody who is interested in learning Common Lisp - or even curious about how the language can improve your productivity - purchase it.
Peter has a very enjoyable and easy-to-understand writing style, and he starts early with practical examples that show how Common Lisp can be used to solved problems. Chapter 3, "A Simple Database", is a great explanation of how programs are grown from pieces in Common Lisp to solve large problems. It's presented early and draws people in to the problem solving techniques used when programming in Lisp.
Peter doesn't skimp on details, though: detailed chapters on FORMAT (for formatted output), LOOP (for general iteration / value collection), and CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System) provide a wonderful tutorial to these powerful but complex features.
The book ends with a long string of practical examples that synthesize multiple concepts into programs that are useful and show exactly why programming in Lisp is so cool. The last practical example, which builds a HTML generation library in Lisp, gives the reader a taste of why writing a Domain-Specific Language is so easy in Lisp and why it can integrate so well with the rest of the language.
Peter is very enthusiastic about Common Lisp and it shows in his writing. Unlike other authors (Paul Graham comes to mind) he gives every major feature of the language its due and shows how and where it should be used.
Practical Common Lisp may be one of the most fun books on programming you'll read all year. Even if you're just curious, check it out. It may change the way you program.Practical Common Lisp Overview...it has a fresh view on the language and the examples in the later chapters are usable in your day-to-day work as a programmer. — Frank Buss, Lisp Programmer and Slashdot ContributorIf you're interested in Lisp as it relates to Python or Perl, and want to learn through doing rather than watching, Practical Common Lisp is an excellent entry point. — Chris McAvoy, Chicago Python Users Group Lisp is often thought of as an academic language, but it need not be. This is the first book that introduces Lisp as a language for the real world.
Practical Common Lisp presents a thorough introduction to Common Lisp, providing you with an overall understanding of the language features and how they work. Over a third of the book is devoted to practical examples such as the core of a spam filter and a web application for browsing MP3s and streaming them via the Shoutcast protocol to any standard MP3 client software (e.g., iTunes, XMMS, or WinAmp). In other "practical" chapters, author Peter Seibel demonstrates how to build a simple but flexible in-memory database, how to parse binary files, and how to build a unit test framework in 26 lines of code.


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Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 (Expert's Voice in .NET) Review

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Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 (Expert's Voice in .NET) ReviewMicrosoft must be under new management, we are getting a slew of new, truly useful tools that are making pretty big strides forward for faster more enjoyable C# development and ease of maintenance. The latest technologies seem well worth taking the time to master. I find the combination of LINQ and the Sync framework couldn't have come at a better time. While the book mentions that LINQ to SQL only supports SQL Server, that is no longer true as you can also use (at least) MS SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 (which is required for the Sync Framework). You can't use the visual object relational designer with SSCE but the book documents SQLMetal, and you can use that to create your context.
Overall I found this to be a very good book but it has a few flaws. If like me you are interested in LINQ for a current or upcoming database project here is what I would suggest. First don't start with this book, finish with it. Start with the ten excellent screencasts by Mike Taulty. Then read this book. Your reading will go much faster and you'll get a satisfyingly sated feeling. The author will probably hate me for saying this, but if you already know SQL or ADO.NET 2.0, I would suggest reading Chapters 1-3, then skim 4 and 5 just to get an overview of the operators available. Then read part 5 (Chapters 12-18) on LINQ to SQL. After you digest that I would suggest whichever topics interest you the most, then I would finish with a more thorough read of Chapters 4 and 5 on Deferred and Nondeffered operators, which in my mind are really a thoroughly documented reference section.
The reason the author will hate that, is he doesn't want readers to use LINQ for just database purposes, and he states that many times in the book. In fact, I think that is why he put the LINQ to SQL section at the end. However, he seems to have made a significant effort to make any part readable on its own, so I see no problem with skipping to the end so early.
The book doesn't really cover data binding, but there is a lot of good information on that available on the internet (the above mentioned screencasts show some of them, and an overly long video on Channel 9 with Young Joo from August 2007 shows even more).
I also have a few nit-picky things that drove me crazy. The most significant one being the amount of repetition and unedited console output. I was also none too happy that the author didn't mention that the Visual Studio Command prompt was under the START menu not an IDE menu. But then again without the author I wouldn't even have known there was a Visual Studio 2008 command prompt.
The weakest part of the book is the index, it is downright anemic. In the several weeks since I've finised the book the index has NEVER helped me find things I remember reading. If you find items of interest you better pencil them into the back cover if you want to find them again later. If one book ever needed a free PDF, this one is it, but they charge $10 for it. Maybe that is why they made the index so bad, to encourage you to fork over another $10.
That said, I also found a good half-dozen or so gems in the book that saved me significant time. Now I could tell you what those are but I think you should buy the book to find out.
Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 (Expert's Voice in .NET) OverviewLINQ (Language INtegrated Query) is a new addition to the .NET Framework that Microsoft will be releasing alongside the next version of Visual Studio ("Orcas") in mid-2007. It is set to revolutionize the way that database applications are constructed by providing developers with a standard set of queries that they can implement in the same way regardless of the data-source that they are working with. Whether it's an XML file, a text file, an Oracle database or a SQL database they're all accessed the same way through the LINQ syntax. This is an enormously powerful new feature that affects almost all users of the .NET Framework. As a result it's already being eagerly anticipated and generating a huge amount of buzz in the .NET community.Pro LINQ will be the first book published on the final release version of the software. It will provide a complete overview of this important emerging technology. In a detailed 500 pages readers are taken through all of LINQ's important features showing how the technology can be put to practical use quickly and simply. By reading this book they will be able to get ahead of the game and be ready when the new technology breaks.

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