Murach's ASP.NET 4.6 Web Programming with C# 2015

I needed a book in web development coming from being an application developer. This book combined all of the basic information I needed to grasp it all.

I have been using Murach books to further my technical career since 1984. They were the best in the business then, and after purchasing this book I can enthusiastically say they're the best in the business now. Their unique approach to textbook writing makes comprehension a breeze and you'll be proficient in whatever discipline you aspire in no time at all.

I am a computer science student and bought this to teach myself asp.net a few months ago. I had no experience with asp.net or C# prior to purchasing the book; however, I do know some other programing languages. I have been working through all the chapters and am near the end, so I feel that I have enough experience with the book to give you an opinion.Others have good descriptions of how Murach's 2-page layout makes it easier to see what's going on, and I agree. For me, it's a very efficient and intuitive format for learning.The book will give you a good basis in asp.net and will teach you some about C# as well. However, if you do not know C# (or another language) you will likely need to learn a little about it on your own. You'll need to learn things like converting data types and formatting output. You can probably teach yourself the C# you will need by going online, but I purchased the Murach's C# book at the same time as a companion. It has been helpful as a reference, but I haven't needed it "in depth". The plus side is that several chapters of the asp.net book have a minimal amount of C# and so it doesn't prevent you from understanding what's going on. You will also get a taste of SQL, CSS, Bootstrap, ADO.NET, object oriented programming and a few other things with this book.The writing style is not overly "technical". They seem to be trying to get people through it without causing confusion which is always appreciated.Although they generally do a good job, they sometimes glide over certain topics. For instance, in Ch. 6 they talk about "other standard server controls" and basically tell you to learn jQuery and to look online for information.Another dislike I have is that they don't always tell you which file contains the code they are working with. I am referring to the code snippets in the chapters (not the exercises at the end). This becomes a pain when there are a lot of different files, and you have to stop and hunt down the code example in the actual program. Most of the time they are pretty good at pointing you in the right direction, but more than once they don't, and it was just something that caused me a headache a time or two.As far as the downloads that you need for the examples, I had no problems with any of them working. I used Visual Studio 2015 and SQL Server 2012.Overall, I think this book was a good investment of my time and money. My advice is to read "actively" and carefully. Work the examples in the book, don't just read them. You will likely run into errors when you are coding it yourself and it will force you to think about what is happening. That is how you will learn and make it stick.

I haven't found a Murach's book that I didn't like. Great explanations and much cheaper than other textbooks

Exactly what I expected

Pretty good so far. Explains in great detail

There's a ton of useful information here but the labs are a bit lackluster. My biggest issue is that instead of walking through the steps, it tends to have you flip back and forth to look at tables of how to do it. This means multiple bookmarks. I do like that they have solution files to go with each exercise so if you get stuck, you can see how they did it and how they got there.

Takes some time to get used to, but otherwise a goldmine of knowledge