As a beginning programmer, I'm aware of the need to get into a subject much deeper than you normally would to ensure a through understanding of the pieces of the puzzle, so to speak. But I'm not sure why the need to use Web Matrix as a tool to design websites using ASP.Net especially when you have an environment like Visual Studio. Is it the cost?

If so, that seems like the same argument of using Linux on all workstations because it's cheaper (free) than Windows. Forgetting or not considering the actual cost to maintain the systems or in this case, the cost/time in the actual programming. That should account for something.

I like the authors, Ullman, Kauffman, Hart, and Sussman, and the way they approach a subject, starting at the bottom and working their way up. They truely have a feel for the beginner. So, this is not a blast against them. This is not the only book that uses Web Matrix.

Just a thought. I'm sure being a beginner, I'm missing something. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

You're right - cost is the reason, but perhaps for reasons you might not thought of. Beginners come in all varieties; experienced programmers learning a new methodology, students, retirees looking for something new to learn, and so on. All of these I've had experience of and provided support for over a number of years on the Beginning series of books. Therefore yes, we chose a tool that was free, had a good pedigree (written by the ASP.NET team), and was small (for easy downloading). This means that everyone who buys the book can have the same experience.

Visual Studio is an excellent tool, but is not only expensive, but also has far more features than most people need (especially beginners), and has a project based system which is confusing for tradition ASP programmers. There are other excellent development tools, as well as other editors without design environments, and we simply had to pick what we thought was the best for the audience. Oh, and we like Web Matrix - that should be taken into consideration too. We all tend to recommend things we like!

So you're not missing anything. I suspect other books have picked Web Matrix for the same reason.

I'd like to echo what Dave has already posted, and add a little bit more. First of all we wanted to include as many people as possible and Web Matrix being free was a big plus in its favour. However it doesn't just stop there, and it isn't just another "Personal Web Server".

Without giving too much away, the Web Matrix approach is one you might be getting more familiar with in future releases of VS.NET. When MS give away tools for free, while they are being generous, they also derive some benefit themselves by being able to test new innovations and gauge reaction to new ideas in a far wider environment than just their beta-testers. I'd imagine that there will be aspects of Web Matrix that will find themselves in the next version of VS.NET.

Also on top of this we wanted the book to be all about ASP.NET. If we'd added VS.NET coverage, it would have required several more chapters. We considered it, and we also considered Notepad, but Web Matrix seemed like a good compromise of useful features, but also not getting in the way and keeping the book length below a thousand pages.

Lastly IIS doesn't work on XP Home edition, while Web Matrix plus Web Server do. We intuited that a lot of users would be learning at home, and it would be quite likely that this is the operating system of choice, so once again we strove to include as many possible people in our readership base.

I hope this answers your question,
Chris Ullman

Hello,
now that Microsoft has released SP2, does it even work on XP pro. At least, I have the impression it doesn't as the snap-in i used to use before SP2 is "dead" as it were and I can't even get the MMC to create a new snap-in, probably because of the new security barriers put in place by SP2. Does anybody disagree, and if they do, what am I doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for reading this,

Philippe

Philippe:
Yes, IIS does still work in XP Pro with XP2. Please see the following for some changes:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...tech.mspx#EAAA
Assuming this machine isn't in a setting where a network admin has disabled IIS for you and locked-down the config that way, IIS should still function.

Jim Minatel
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Wiley Technology Publishing
WROX Press
Jim's Book of the week: Beginning CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design