Book review: ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development

asp-net-35-cms-developmentAnother book from Packt, that I got a chance to review, is ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development.

First I thought that this would be the book that showed me a genuine reference implementation of a CMS in ASP.NET, giving me the introduction to the concepts of CMSs that I think I need. I have never used CMSs before (besides WordPress :)), so I have only a vague notion of the concepts.

But the book turns out to be more like a beginner’s introduction to the .NET stack, which just happens to be in a CMS context.

The book starts out by explaining how to set up an ASP.NET website with a single page based on a text file that can be edited “online”. Then it moves on and expands the website in all directions by putting the pages inside a SQL Server – and then it walks the reader through the details of setting up the site in IIS.

The book is actually pretty good at explaining all these things in a precise to-the-point manner, but I think it should be noted that the stuff in this book is not production ready. But then again, lots of books contain code samples and stuff that is not production ready.

If you are new to the .NET platform, you could definitely benefit from reading this book. If you are looking for instructions on how to develop CMSs, I don’t think this is the right book.

Conclusion: A nice introduction to the .NET platform.

Title: ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development
Authors: Curt Christianson, Jeff Cochran
ISBN 10/13: 1847193617 / 978-1-847193-61-2
Publisher: Packt Publishing

One thought on “Book review: ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development

  1. Thanks for the feedback and review. As you noted, the book really was geared more towards learning development than it was specifically to CMS. It was a trade-off but in the end we tried to make a solid tool for learning and hope we have done just that.

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