I have read many books from wrox and I am so sorry to say this but this is the worst book by worx. what is worse is that the content is lovely... the language ie perfect... the explanation are solid BUT there is so much errata that I have to spend more time reading ur p2p forums then i spend on the book.

Every chapter forces me to 'dedug' it before i can finish it.
I reached chap 4 in quadraple time then otherwise.

Such a waste of a jem, giving it to be polished by a carpenter.

regards
Vaibhav Garg
India.

My book: Beginning ASP.NET 2.0, Edition 2006.

Vaibhag:
While I agree with you that there should be fewer errors in this book (and you'll see I've posted other messages to that effect on other threads in the book forum) I would note that since you edited your initial post which commented about the empty chapter 4 begin folder to delete that criticism, that means you probably noticed after posting this that the first step of the first example in chapter 4 has you create a new blank site to work with, thus the reason for the empty begin folder.

So, maybe it's possible that having deleted that criticism, the remainder of your other overall criticism might not be as bad as you initially thought.

Jim Minatel
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Wiley Technology Publishing
WROX Press
Blog: http://wroxblog.typepad.com/
Jim's Book of the week: No book this week - Donate to the Red Cross!

Dear Jim

First of all i would like to say that i have immense respect for the quality of books by wrox, Except for this one.

The above post was written out of sheer anger for something of my own(Feeling like being a part of the wrox family). I have always promoted strongly the books by wrox. Books from wrox have been my guiding light. But when you start depending on and get comfey with something then it is very saddening if that thing goes suddenly undependable. You suddenly have nowhere to go.

I know that the above sounds very dramatic but i do not have a simpler way to put it.

Make no mistake of telling me what I feel. I still stand by my words.
"Such a waste of a jem, giving it to be polished by a carpenter."

Though, i would like to know the reason for these silly errata that the book contains in abundance.
Is it attributed to The writer(s), The editor(s) or to the haste of bringing a book out before the competitors.

Vaibhav Garg
India

PS: My next book is "Begining Visual Basic.net 2005". I hope that book does not validate my feeling as a whole for wrox.

Vaibhav:

I appreciate that strong feelings about our books can cause opinions to swing both ways. People who like our books the most when they are good are the ones who feel most let down when they aren't as good.

Why the errors?
I don't think it was entirely haste because we did spend a lot of time on this project, despite that fact that we had it done soon after ASP.NET 2.0 released. We did multiple rounds of tech editing on this.

The writers? Sure, I think they'll admit that in places, they introduced errors that they're sick about. Dave mentioned this in responding to some errors on the C# version of the book.

The editors? I don't place the individual fault there either. I know that the tech editor caught and helped fix many things.

If there's one thing I want to try differently and am experimenting with how to handle in our book process, it's that the highly experienced authors and tech editors we hire, sometimes overlook an error in an easy things they've done 100 times. I want to try to work on a process that will get novices, first time users to the software, especially on our "Beginning" books, somehow involved in the review process to spot these things that all the experienced pros miss. I have to balance that thought with not overwhelming the authors with extra incorrect questions from the novices for the authors on things that are correct but the reader did wrong.



Jim Minatel
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Wiley Technology Publishing
WROX Press
Blog: http://wroxblog.typepad.com/
Jim's Book of the week: No book this week - Donate to the Red Cross!