Rating: 
Summary: Great tutorial, AS USUAL
Review: My first introduction to this series of books was when I took a Macromedia Director class for a "certified instructor". At first, I was disappointed in the fact that I would actually pay someone to go step by step through a book. In the end, I wasn't disappointed at all.Typical to Macromedia Press, this book is meant as a walk-thru tutorial covering many of the features you need to get up and running. User Authentication, forms, Post, Cookies, etc. are all well explained and can be applied immediately to your own web applications - and all the code works!! No troubleshooting is necessary. Although the book is designed to be a complete "course", it is a great reference and has the ability to use all the content or just 1 or 2 chapters. This book is a MUST if you are new to dynamic websites!!
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect in Almost Every Aspect
Review: The one aspect that's not perfect is this book doesn't include JSP or PHP/MySQL, but more on that later... Whoa! Finally a tech book that was written by an educator who knows how to teach and proofed by an editor that actually took the time to read it. Other than a few minor typos, I don't think I found one code error or other significant mistake in this book. Take note Sams and Sybex and other publishers that don't care about making mistakes!! If I had the ability and knowledge to write a book on this subject, this is exactly how I would do it. Bardzell is extremely knowledgable on the subject, and he writes in a way that anyone can understand, without making it too simple. It's possible that some may conclude there is too much handholding in this book, but for novices it's great, and for others, it's easy to skip the few sentences/paragraphs that reiterate basic procedures. Bardzell starts with some basics that can be skipped if needed, but are useful to go through nonetheless. I found the XHTML chapter and CSS refresher useful and nicely succinct. But he quickly gets past that and right into the dynamic info that we bought the book for in the first place. The code and explanations are clear and easy to follow, and if you go through the book linearly (which I strongly suggest), it follows a smooth learning pattern, with each section building on the next. The example, a travel tour site, is very much a real-world exercise. Everything you learn can be transferred to other sites you're probably working on. But back to the JSP & PHP/MySQL ommission: This book uses Cold Fusion and ASP as the server models. Both are covered very well, but if you can't afford CF, or you're one of those that prefers open source to the Microsoft All-conquering Domination Model, then be prepared to spend a lot more time on each lesson as you convert the provided code into JSP or PHP. It's do-able, and in a brief e-mail communication with the author, he mentioned that he had also built the example site in PHP, so you know it can be done. But hopefully you already know JSP or PHP, rather than doing what I did and try to learn it on the fly. I would definately consider this a 5-star book if you're looking for CF or ASP instruction, and I've never given a 5-star rating before to anything. But for PHP or JSP users, plan on doubling the time estimates of each lesson.
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