ERCB: Using Active Server Pages

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Vital Statistics

Title	Using Active Server Pages: Special Edition
Authors	Scott Johnson, Keith Ballinger, Davis Chapman, and Steven Potts
Publisher	Que Corp. Indianapolis, Indiana http://www.quecorp.com
Copyright	1997
ISBN	1-7897-1389-6
Pages	811
Price	$49.99

Using Active Server Pages

Every technical book publisher has its own approach to gaining shelf space at the expense of its competitors. Que's approach is to release hefty, manly, studly 800+ page books that can simply crowd out other books on the same subject -- authors that anticipate producing a book that weighs less than 5 pounds need not apply to Que. Of course, there are very few programming topics where more is actually more, so to speak. But publishers have many tactics that can be used to bulk up a manuscript -- redundancy, white space, screen shots, trivial diagrams, cute icons, appendices that are recycled from Microsoft programming documentation, etc.

Given Que's track record, I was surprised to find that Using Active Server Pages is a pretty decent piece of work. The information is relatively accurate and the book exposes the reader to the full range of Active Server Pages programming issues, although the coverage of each topic is quite shallow. I get the impression that the authors don't have much practical experience with Active Server Pages and actual industrial-grade, production web sites. There are also chapters on Microsoft's new Transaction Server , Message Queue Server, and Management Console. These are not complete enough to be used as a guide to implementation, but at least help the reader to understand why these products exist and what they are good for.

This book would be a reasonable introduction to Active Server Pages for a reader with little or no programming experience but some understanding of simple databases and HTML. Technically sophisticated readers will be more satisfied with WROX Press's Professional Active Server Pages.

-- Ray Duncan (duncan@cerf.net)

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