MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Developing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET

By Microsoft Corporation

This book/CD-ROM/DVD package helps software developers prepare for MCP Exams 70-305 and 70-315 with lessons and hands-on exercises on building Web applications with Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735615845
• ISBN13: 9780735615847
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 804 Pages
• Weight: 3.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 2.3" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

An adequate alternative to pricy test kits and classes

I bought this book together with the self-study guide for 30-316 (Developing Windows Applications with .NET). I had already passed exam 70-316 before starting to prepare for 70-315. I liked this book better than 316 because it has more chapters and fewer lessons per chapter. Since there is one lab per chapter, I got to do labs more often and practice a smaller set of skills at a time.The chapters on XSLT and web security were quite digestible. The lessons on custom controls however, were a bit tough especially because I could not get the correct results in the lab. I rank ADO.NET as a special skill, judging by the thorough way that it is tested in exams. You cannot expect great coverage of ADO.NET in a book that is not primarily dedicated to the topic. And even though this book does not provide that kind of coverage it does explain the ubiquitous DataGrid and DataList controls and gives a good picture of how to do data binding. I found it necessary to review the ADO.NET material in the 70-316 book as well. The quality of the remaining topics is satisfactory.I would say that the practice test was quite adequate. I might have thought otherwise if I had not got a score of 70 and 84 percent the two times that I took it. I did not like the fact that you cannot pause the test, something that the 70-316 practice test lets you do. I found the exam quite challenging because a lot of the questions tested the key aspects of a professional website such as security, performance, scalability, migration, etc. So be sure to review forms authentification, stored procedures, caching, web farms and gardens and working with legacy ADO pages. And above all - practice on your own!

Recommended

A good drill of the topics covered in the exam.

Covers the basics well

Good primer. The labs are good. You learn a lot more by getting your hands dirty rather than studying the theory.

Not a bad prep book after all

I think the book does the job it was written for---to prepare you for an exam. It's not meant to be a primer as you need to be familiar with C#.NET or VB.NET to fully understand what's going on. You definitely need to get some hands-on practice and read other ASP.NET/ADO.NET/etc books, but given the task of tutoring you it. deserves its five stars.

.NET certification material from the horse's mouth...

What's not to like? This voluminous certification guide for the web side of Microsoft's latest application development technology, .NET, is surprisingly geared toward beginners and even includes a brief primer on web programmming concepts for those who've never done web apps before. More advanced readers will skip the early sections and quickly sink their teeth into the more in-depth chapters, especially on the new features of ASP .NET.Despite the size, which is considerable, the writing style is brisk and easy to read, and there are plenty of diagrams and references to additional material. The presentation of most concepts is in a lesson plan form that is alternatively refreshing and tedious, depending on the familiarity of the material, probably no fault of the format itself.Readers hoping for an Exam Cram version that is stripped to bare essentials may be disappointed, Microsoft seems to want readers to fundamentally understand the concepts rather than absorb raw facts to pass a test. While this is probably good for those who really want to learn the technology, it will leave those looking for a no-frills Cliff Notes overview a little frustrated.Kudos on the .NET DVD and exam prep CD, although I haven't used the 2nd one yet.There seems to be adequate coverage of both VB .NET and C# but like most .NET material, there seems to be a subtle bias towards the VB language for ASP related material.All-in-all the package is worth the fairly steep price, although you are getting a comprehensive study guide including running versions of the products. Hopefully the rest of the .NET certification series will be as thorough.