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Inside Dreamweaver UltraDEV 4
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Author: Sean Nicholson
List Price: $44.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0735711070
Publisher: New Riders (07 September, 2001)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 220,322
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 3 out of 5
Nice Idea, Interesting Site, but too many problems
Sean Nicholson had a great idea for this book, and I wish they would have allowed him another chance to fix it in the updated Inside Dreamweaver MX (which I don't recommend), but the update was assigned to other authors.I use this book for a college class...along with dozens of pages of workaround documentation. There are obvious oversights in the methodology of web development, such as using absolute rather than relative URL references--so, that the menus don't function when you publish to a server, which is how web development works in reality. There are Dreamweaver issues that the author ignores, such as the fact that you can't put Server Behaviors in both the site template and individual pages--you have to choose one or the other. If you blindly follow the instructions in the book, you'll reach several points where you blow away the work of previous chapters due to the template issue. There are page elements constructed as placeholders in early chapters that don't work in later chapters, and then are problematic to update. Overall, I'd have to guess that the actual sample site on the web was hacked at the code level, as it can't actually be created with Dreamweaver tools as demonstrated by the book. Unfortunately, there aren't many choices for advanced site tutorials using Dreamweaver for ASP/JSP/PHP. Most books cover basic web development and Flash. So, while this book is flawed, it is useful...but be prepared to ... your way through it.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Good UltraDev 4 Tutorial
This is a very well written and easy to understand book. I hate to not give it five stars, but there are two problems that prevent me from giving it more than four. This book is a tutorial that walks the reader through the construction of a fictional company that uses the web to display and sell their wares. The books focus is on using UltraDev 4 along with ASP and VBScript to create a database-driven website. If you are new to doing this, then this book will be great for you. If you have done this in the past and hand coded the project using ASP and VBScript, then you should consider using UltraDev to simplify and speed up your development time. Overall "Inside Dreamweaver UltraDev 4" lives up to its promise and I am pleased with the book.
One major problem with the book comes to the reader in Chapter Eight. There are some steps that are misprinted and you will not be able to progress until you check the book's web site for a correction. My advice is to do this before you reach it in the book. The site is on the back cover and a link is on the first web page labeled "click here to download the book's exercise files and view errata."
The other problem is not really a problem with the book, but more so with the style the book is presented in. As a tutorial you are exposed to every thing needed in order to get the site up and running, but the core concepts are not taught in such a way that you will find easy to remember and duplicate on your own. Once you set out to build your own database-driven site, you will most likely not take the route that the authors did to create theirs. This is when a good reference book on UltraDev may be useful. Personally, I enjoy tutorials as a learning tool with the addition of reference books as help in the development process. Overall this is a very good tutorial on using Dreamweaver UltraDev to build database-driven web pages with Microsoft Access, ASP and VBScript.
Rating: 5 out of 5
The Most Concise Hands-On Tutorial for Ultradev
This book is a great companion to New Riders' other Dreamweaver text, Inside Dreamweaver 4. (Buy that one, too!) While it devotes a chapter to basic page design in case the reader doesn't own a book on design, it doesn't retread the contents of the other volume. Nor does it attempt to be everything to everyone.Instead, this text focuses on what sets Dreamweaver Ultradev apart from the basic version of Dreamweaver (and from other web page design tools): its ability to create data-driven web pages. Author Nicholson takes the reader through the base foundation one needs to undertake the building of a "live" web site, and then guides us step by step through a practical tutorial that builds upon each acquired skill. The tips in this book are worth the price alone. I find myself making big read asterisks in the margin next to most of them. Like its companion volume, and other New Riders books, this book does not take a "cookie cutter" approach. Mr. Nicholson is not afraid to say that a certain feature doesn't always work well and may require a workaround (which he gives you). Both books present Dreamweaver in the context of best practices in web page design and application development, so you not only learn the tool you're reading about; you learn solid principles of good design. Yes, the book has some minor mistakes, for which the author has courteously provided errata on the companion website.... Frankly, I know of NO computer book that doesn't have some mistakes, and the problems I encountered in Chapter 8 of this book only made my troubleshooting skills stronger. Of course, if you don't have the time to create the files from scratch (or simply don't want to), you can download the files from the web site. But you're short-changing yourself if you don't try creating the pages yourself, because you will learn some good design tips and Dreamweaver shortcuts. Don't be mislead to think that you won't need to touch any code if you use Dreamweaver Ultradev, or even the regular version of Dreamweaver. The product is not designed to shield you from coding completely. A little (or a lot of) scripting knowledge can never hurt. I can't say enough good things about this book. I have seen other, more voluminous texts that aren't nearly as useful or direct in their approach.
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