MCAD/MCSD Training Guide (70-315): Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Visual C# and Visual Studio.NET (Training Guide)

This series is for sure the most popular training guide for Microsoft's MCAD/MCSD certification exams. Even after the release of a new generation of certification exams there are still folks (like me) who are still taking the 2003 exam for their own reasons. Let's see the most important pros and cons for this book:

Pros:
* Text: the text is well written and easy to understand. Very simple and clear vocabulary. It is not a boring reading.
* Guided Practices, Review Questionsand Exam Questions: there're plenty of exercises on every chapter, including 15 exam-like questions and some other review questions. I like books with exercises. It's a good way for the reader to measure what they've learned.
* PrepLogic software: gives a good idea of the kind of software you'll have to deal with on the real exam.
Cons:
* Code examples: as in most programming books code example tend to leverage for the beginner, sometimes lacking in code design.

All in all, this book is a sure shot if you're going to take the 70-315 exam as well as a good reading for ASP.NET newbies so don't hesitate to buy it.

Exam tips:
* be confident
* know your strengths and weaknesses
* don't rush the exam! there's plenty of time! in my exam there were 43 questions and 150 minutes for me to answer them!

Good luck in your exam!

I'm sure Amit Kalani knows his stuff but there are several issues that I have with this book which make me wish I had bought another one.

Firstly, and this is the most annoying fact, it is hopelessly out of date. I am using Visual Studio 2005 and it is painfully obvious to me that the book was written for an earlier version, which means that following the instructions given is sometimes impossible. This means I miss out on valuable experience that I could have gained through those step by step code examples where the procedures in the book clash with the current reality.

Secondly, there are a number of small niggling typos present throughout which undermine my confidence in the authority of the book as a whole.

Added to this is my suspicion (though I am not sure, given I'm not the expert) that some code examples given contain small mistakes or inconcistencies. Again, this is just a suspicion, as of this moment I have not actually tried to implement those examples where I have noticed such possible errors. Overall though, given the previously outlined gripe I have, my suspicion is very strong.

So you can see, I am not very happy about this book. The fact it is out of date is the major contributing factor to this. I wish I'd checked the publication date before spending my money.

I used just this book to pass the test with a score of 900. My only disppointment with the book is the exam that comes on the CD. The quality of the questions are not very good; although, I think it is only there to entice you to buy the full set of test that they market on the publisher's website. Other than, though, the book does a great job of covering all the relevant topics on the exam and I found the large amount of exercises extremely useful at driving home the material.

This book is designed for the intermediate level developer who wants to learn how to develop web services using Microsoft's C# in the .NET framework, and for those who want to pass the 70-320 examination. This is not a 'cram for the test' type book but instead gives you the information you need to do the job, and incidentally pass the test. It is not a complete book on C# or .NET or even the Visual Studio IDE software. It is on how to use these to build real life systems.

Tied in with this, of course is information on passing the test. There is information about the test itself, and practice examinations (one printed in the book, one on the CD included).

If you are just interested in passing the test, there is a shorter book in the Exam Cram2 series. It's written by the same author but is significantly smaller as it is test only oriented.

This is the 3rd Amit Kalani book that I have purchased and used to prepare for Microsoft certification exams. Very easy to understand and follow. Good exercises.