The code examples do not match the screen shots
The code doesn't compile
I had to correct the code at least 3 times and that's only for the first 2 CHAPTER !!

Typical of most WROX books.

I don't want to discount your experience or opinion but of the tens of thousands of developers who've bought this book, we've had about 3 complaints versus hundreds of people who've told us they're really happy with it.

As you can see, we've got some really active users here in the forums. If you can post some specific examples of code you think doesn't match the screens and compilation errors you're getting, and tone down the "typical of most Wrox books" rhetoric, you'll probably have several people willing to walk through it with you to discover the root of the issue and the solution.

Jim Minatel
Acquisitions Director
Wiley Technology Publishing
WROX Press
Blog: http://wroxblog.typepad.com/
Wrox online library: http://wrox.books24x7.com

I opened up the chapter-by-chapter files and inspected chapter 2
1. The page does not render properly with templatemonster theme(Yellow theme looks ok but the header is using a different image)
2. The 2nd theme does not work as written. I understood where he was going so I made the correction myself
3. The changes made to globals.cs in chapter create a runtime error - ThemeSelectorID is null. I don't see any differences compared with the chapter 3 downloaded project but I may have missed something.
4. In the book, there is an xmlns in web.config but the downloaded code has none.

Maybe these are minor issues but its extremely frustrating when code from instructors does not work.

It almost looks like after the book was written, changes were made to the project - either because there were enhancements/errors - making it very difficult to follow along.

In chapter 3, what does a grid have to do with architecture ? web.config, dal, bll are fine

For these kind of sample project books, they need to be one project/chapter instead of a complete solution covering all the chapters. It just doesn't help with the learning process.

Although one of our readers did convert several of the chapters to a chapter by chapter code format to help others get started as described here:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=52574

the book wasn't really intended to be used chapter by chapter, it is meant as a total application. Eric the technical editor described that fairly well in this thread when the issue of chapter by chapter versus whole application first came up:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45693

Are your template and theme problems related to this VS2005 issue:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50262

The ThemeSelectorID may be related to approaching this chapter by chapter versus installing the whole application. Looking at some of the other posts I see where users have had problems with this, it seemed like they were working chapter by chapter.

Jim Minatel
Acquisitions Director
Wiley Technology Publishing
WROX Press
Blog: http://wroxblog.typepad.com/
Wrox online library: http://wrox.books24x7.com

Markinro,

As you have apparently discovered, this is not a typical "hold-my-hand-and-tell-me-what-to-do" book. It's really best to think of it as an opportunity to "look over the shoulder" of an expert programmer. It's not for beginners (I'm not saying you are one; I'm just sayin'...), and it assumes a good deal of prior knowledge. There are lots of books and internet resources that will teach you about ASP.NET and walk you through various techniques, but very few that show you how to apply ASP.NET to a full-blown real world application like this one does.

Does it have a few mistakes? Does it appear to be missing a step or two here and there? Yes, I will grant you that. But instead of getting all ticked off, seize on it as a learning opportunity. If you can get through the whole book and understand how the application works, you can then proudly count yourself among the top 20% of ASP.NET programmers. And like Jim said, there's a lot of help available.