John Holt once said, “There is no difference between living and learning.” Of course, others have also said that it’s bad form to open an article with a quote. But anyway, ASP.NET pros who are interested in continuing their education might do well to pick up a book by Paul T. Kimmel called Professional DevExpress ASP.NET Controls.
Here’s one nice thing about the book: its title doesn’t exactly obfuscate the subject covered by the text. This book deals with the task of using DevExpress ASP.NET controls, including controls for Silverlight and Ajax, HTML editors, charts, calendars, and all other sorts of stuff.
What’s more, the book comes with a CD packing some software to help readers follow along and get some hands-on experience as they read. (Specifically, the CD covers more than 40 WinForms controls, more than 20 ASP.NET controls, and includes a trial version of the ASPxperience Suite for ASP.NET.)
As for an actual review of the book’s contents, we can turn to T. Michael Testi. He wrote earlier this week, “Professional DevExpress ASP.NET Controls makes for a comprehensive overview of the controls that come in the ASPxperience Suite for ASP.NET. . . . Kimmel does a great job of providing an overview along with a fair amount of code to get you started.”
Testi later continued, “Where I do think this book works best is that it does step you through the basic functionality of each control to give you sufficient confidence to get up and running to the point where you can explore specific controls in more detail on your own.”
Purchasing Professional DevExpress ASP.NET Controls could be something to look into if you’ve got an itch to learn, $27 to spare, and the time to read (or at least skim) around 670 pages, then.
Perhaps the one thing to watch out for is the fact that software package does only include a trial version of ASPxperience Suite for ASP.NET, and Testi and an Amazon reviewer agree that the full edition will serve most users much better in the end.
