Amazon.com ReviewWritten for any Web developer making the move to the latest Microsoft .NET Web development technologies, Professional ASP.NET provides both a tutorial to APIs and a real guide to the best practices for this new platform. Ideal for those with a little previous ASP experience, this book strikes just the right balance between theory and practice to show what works with the new .NET.
Although this is quite a big volume (over 1,300 pages), it is never a dense one. Written by a team of authors, it still manages to keep a fairly consistent tone and approach to programming with the new ASP.NET. The book first covers what's new and improved in .NET and why ASP.NET offers a better way to develop Web applications.
Throughout this text, short code excerpts are used to illustrate key programming principles, from the basics of building dynamic Web pages using 'code behind' functions and (eventually) business objects. There's excellent coverage on the many choices for server-side components from HTML Controls to Web Forms, to wireless support and even building your own custom server components. (Most of the coding examples rely on the new Visual Basic.NET, but there is also help on using C# and JScript.NET.) Besides APIs and sample code, the authors give numerous concrete tips. For instance, for programming ADO.NET databases and XML, they cover a wide range of choices and provide recommendations for selecting the right objects for better performance.
The book also covers the emerging world of Web services on .NET in good detail with a high-level view of what Web services are, plus practical examples of how to implement them. Importantly, you'll learn how to build business objects, a must for scalable Web applications. (These techniques come together at the end with a case study for an online store that sells outdoor gear.) There's also coverage of basic .NET classes for common programming tasks, like working with strings, collections, and files.
Though .NET is still under construction, Professional ASP.NET offers a real benefit in showing readers the right ways to use new features and APIs. Besides presenting a really understandable tutorial to the basics of ASP.NET, their expert-level insight into what works best on the new platform should pay off with faster and more scalable Web applications on .NET. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered:
Introduction to ASP.NET and the Microsoft .NET platform
ASP and ASP.NET compared (including benefits and design goals of ASP.NET)
.NET vs. the Windows Distributed interNet Architecture (DNA)
The Common Language Runtime (CLR) explained
Basic introduction to ASP.NET development languages (Visual Basic.NET, C#, JScript.NET, and C++ compared)
Performance issues
Declaring variables, functions, and procedures
The ASP.NET Page class
Using 'code behind' scripts and page caching
Custom controls
Tutorial for the ASP.NET HTML Server controls
Using input validation controls
Tutorial for the ASP.NET Web Form controls
Data binding controls explained
Using styles and templates
Editing data with bound controls
ADO.NET database APIs and programming techniques (using the DataReader and DataSet objects)
ADO.NET and XML support
XML basics (including the XML DOM and navigating, writing, and reading XML)
Updating data (the Command object, transactions, DataSet, and managing concurrency)
XML data techniques in .NET (XML and DataSet objects, XML, and SQL Server)
Validating, creating, and editing XML documents
Quick tutorial on XSL and XSLT
Administering Web applications (including global.asax, state management, and application events)
Configuring ASP.NET (including common configuration settings, plus tracing, custom errors, authentication, and authorization)
In-depth tutorial on security
Tutorial for working with basic .NET classes (including collections, lists, directories, and files)
Creating custom .NET business objects (including cross-language inheritance)
Building custom ASP.NET Server controls (plus composite controls)
Introduction to Web services (creating and using a simple Web service, SOAP and XML standards, and .NET Web service class support)
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) and the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) described
Web service security issues
ASP.NET support for wireless with mobile controls
Debugging, tracing, and error-handling techniques
Migration and interoperability issues for older code and COM used with ASP.NET
Case study for a sample online e-commerce store using .NET business objects
Quick reference to the .NET common system namespaces
Performance hints for ASP.NET
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Badly out-dated today.
This was a good book back in 2001 because there wasn't much available. It is more than useless now. There are loads of typos and the code techniques used are not best practice. Don't even think of getting it 2nd-hand at a bargain price; better get a later edition.
Rating: - Fantastic reference
An essential reference for anyone doing professional ASP.NET development. As with any of these 1000+ page books, this book is not meant for cover-to-cover reading. This book is pretty well written and is a good source to learn more about a particular area of ASP.NET, but the book's core strength is serving as a reference allowing you to solve specific problems as they are encountered.
Rating: - Great Book!
This book is excellent for ASP.net.The way the book has been written , it had me hooked to it from page one to the end like a thriller!!!!And i easily passed the MCAD/MCSD paper (Exam 70-305 on ASP.net) at the first attempt ,simply by reading this book and little bit on MSDN online.I would highly recommend this book for those who want to give MCAD by really understanding the subject and not by taking shortcuts like braindumps etc.
Rating: - Fair
This isn't the greatest book, but it's not that bad either. There's over 1000 pages of explanations and examples. I thought in general the coverage wasn't bad. There are shortcomings in deployment, packaging and internationalization topics. Your understanding of .NET and ASP.NET will improve greatly by reading this book. Are there better books out there? By now, most likely YES. But for the time that this came out, there weren't many books covering this topic.
Rating: - Rushed to Market Disappontment
We have purchased WROX books such as Professional ASP 3 and have been generally happy with the quality. Hence we didn't hesitate to purchase this version. However having received it , we have found it a rushed poorly edited book based on the BETA version of .NET. Thes structure is poor, detail too low and many errors.
I'm afraid that we would have to advise not to purchase this book.
- Badly out-dated today.
- Fantastic reference
- Great Book!
- Rushed to Market Disappontment
