object databases

This is an outstanding book for ASP programmers ... It serves as a great reference source on a variety of topics. I have been very impressed with the depth and breadth of coverage (contrary to one of the reviews I read). Great value. It'll remain on my shelf for a long time.

I ordered the book and read it. I think that the book is not good for any ASP programmer. First, it is not complete. For example, it didn't cover server.transfer, which is an excellent feature in ASP 3.0. Second, the description about ADO is so simple that I cannot get any idea about ADO.

Why did I buy it? It is cheap and heavy. Another reason was the other users' review. Based on my experience, I suggest you to avoid this book as either study material or reference.

I'm an experienced programmer with 10 years of VB Client/Server and new to the WEB. The WEB is maddeningly different. This book has provided me with THE road map of modern ASP development. It is well organized. Each chapter is well selected. The content of each chapter is such that the subject is adequately covered and I can always get the book from which the chapter is extracted if I want more information. As one commenter put it, its like getting the work product of a half dozen research assistants, each of whom sifted dozens of books.

It is clearly aimed at the person who wants to understand the subject. There are no "To Create..." sequences that walk through the IDE to create a brain-dead and useless example so prevalent in the Microsoft programmer's guides. It assumes that the reader has a high school education, a keen mind and is willing to use both. Looking for a book that will do your thinking for you? This is not it. There are plenty of sample code snippets. They are there to give the reader working examples that augment the text.

I anticipate keeping this book handy as a reference on WEB ASP assignments.

There is a caveat for Microsoft oriented WEB developers. It does not address Visual Interdev. For that topic I recommend Wrox's "Beginning WEB Development with Visual Interdev 6."

I should also mention that this book does not teach one how to program. There are other resources for that. It does teach relational database principles, SQL, ADO, XML, and how to use XML in Microsoft SQL Server. The crowning glory is an excellent "class project," a walk through Microsoft's Biz Talk application.