WEB APPLICATIONS
£5.98
A reasonable place to start - I used this book as my principle source for the MCSD exam (which I passed), but I think it also provides a broad overview of the Interdev product and what it can and cannot do. The O Reilly books I have read for other exams are better than this book for actually passing the tests, but O Reilly don t publish one on this subject. Therefore this is the best book I know of for the exam covered by it.In terms of an introduction to the subject matter this book strikes me as being very thorough with some well-worked examples and is probably more suited as an introductory book than an exam guide, despite its title.
Good preparation for the exam - If you just want to learn about InterDev then this is not the book for you, if you want to cover the exam material then it is probably the best book there is available.This is not an easy subject because InterDev is only the core, the exam branches out into Visual Basic, NT security, SQL server, MTS, Web Application design approaches... on and on. The book reflects this broad coverage and so I can understand other comments that the book was disapointing in that it was not deep enough for them.My view is that it sets out the scope of the exam, gives you the basic introduction to each topic, gives you some hands-on coding with the sample application, but then leaves you to do more research using the MSDN Library for any areas you are not already familar with. For me that was LOTS of areas. However I worked through the book in 4 weeks and passed the exam - so it worked for me!
An expensive door stop. Best used to level a billiard table. - This book will teach you very little that you do not already know. It consists of little more than tendentious statements of the world according to Microsoft, and includes many technical inaccuracies. Many chapters consist of little more than lists of acronyms and technologies, with little discussion or explanation as to what role they can really perform, or what their advantages and limitations are. A simple exam syllabus and sample questions would be of more use (and much cheaper) than this book. I wish I could give no stars.
A Great Learning Experience - I found this book easy to follow, and has given me a great understanding of the package. I am not doing the MSCD exams but found the book a great help. I have since read other books on the topic but can not find anything that I hadn t already found in this great book.
A little disappointing for the money - This book is a poor companion to a wonderful Software tool. The style of writing is very dead-pan, and you will not feel yourself warming to the book at all. (Hard to believe that this book was written by MS-approved corporation). The book is not written in a very conversational style, so I found my attention wandering quite a lot. Also, there are some typos in the book, which will cause you confusion as you try to code from the examples you are given. Some of the code provided in the book just doesn t work, so you may feel a little frustration!A pity that this is one of the books you are meant to read for the 70-152 exam. It would benefit from less propellor-head -type English, and should try to be more friendly toward it s readers.Having said all that, I did learn a lot from the book, although I did buy 2 Wrox books on the same subject, and used them to augment the topics in this book I found to be too badly written to understand fully.