Hello!

I think that Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 book is GREAT! If all of books published by Wrox are like this book then I will be buying many more.

I have completed reading chapters 1-5 and wonder how in the world am I going to keep all of this information in my head! Whew! Yep I am totally new to programming.

I was able to create a simple program that satisfied the needs of my client. It is amazing how much I learn just by reading the first five chapters of the book!

I would like to know how are you going about learning ASP and what exercises you used to reinforce the material read. I am afraid that if I just continue reading the book and doing the exercises that by the time I reach the end of the book, I won’t remember what is in the middle of it! As you know this is a thick book, very much like my skull.

Hi,

Don't focus too much on trying to remember every little bit of information in the book. Let's leave that to the guys with photographic memory (or the Martians :-) ).

As with most things in life, you will remember things better when you work with them, and that applies to ASP as well. Following the examples in a book is a good way of getting a first-impression of a technology, but I always feel that there is still so much that I don't know, after closing the last page of the book. The best way of really getting the hang of the technology is to design your own homepage, and then try to combine what you have learned with the needs that arise during the design process.

For instance, imaging creating a site that let's users see a list of your DVDs, computer games and books. Perhaps you can make some login page as well, to use yourself (or let your friends register as users) when you want to add new items. Let the users cast votes for the movies and so on. When you are designing this page, you will find that you need to use Sessions for following your users across several pages, you need a database to store the DVD information in, etc.

You'll find out quickly which of the chapters of the book you need to re-read, and you'll definitely get longer hair as your site develops (you'll pull your hair a lot, is what I'm trying to say).

Ok, good luck with your future ASP projects.

Erik

--------
Wisdom on the internet? How rare!