Rating:  - Helpful, How it needs to have step by step instructions using Visual Studio 2005 and less technical discussion. VS insulates!
1. If you do not specify the action, the form goes right back to itself. This is called a postback form because it post back to itself.
2.Upon the first time code is submitted to the server it is compiled and ASP does not compile tags it does not recognize. Once the code is compiled, ASP.Net start processing all the user code and event handlers. Event handlers have the following parameters: sender as object and E as eventargs.
3. ASP.Net automatically keeps track of the view state. Developers do not have to maintain or retrieve data being input on the form between different view states.
4. VB.NET variable types are: Byte, short, integer, long, single, double, decimal, char, date, boolean, string, datetime, and objects
5. VB.NET conversion functions are: Cbool, CDec, Cobj, CType, CByte, Cdbl, CShort, Asc, CChar, CInt, CSng, CDate, CLng, Cstr
6. You can create and define code in your event handler "sub handlers button_click(sender as object, e as event args)". When an event is raised - meaning the event happened - it produces variables that describe the event. The object data type represent the object that raised the event.
7. Date/Time functions: datediff, firstdayofweek, day, dayofweek, hour, isdate, minute, now, month,, second, year.
8. Math functions: abs, atan, cos, exp,fix, hex, int, log, oct. rnd, round, sin, sqrt, tan
9. String functions: instr, left, len, mid, replace, right.
10. Buffering allows you to control when output is sent to the browser. Response.buffer = false turns off buffering. When output is buffered, nothing is sent to the buffer until all the code has been executed or the buffer is full. Unbuffered output goes immediately to the browser. Response.flush forces the buffer to empty to the browser.
11. If you create a cookie with a value and then add keys, the initial value will be erased. You can not create cookies with both values and keys.
12. If the browser does not support session cookies, ASP.Net tacks on an encoded version of the session id to a link. When a user clicks a link, ASP decodes the session id and passes to the page the user is requesting.
13. Web forms handles all events and generates html on the server. "" means that upon the button click event a clickhander event will be called passing object and eventargments as parameters. The coding for the event is stored as code referenced by the asp.net page by the directive, "<@page language='vb' CodeFile='your_external_vb_code.aspx.vb' AutoEventWireup='false' Inherits='_Default'>"
14. The Web forms processing order: a. page is requested b. viewstate is restored for any controls c. the page_load event occurs d. events are handled, the page_unload event occurs.
15. The autopostback=true attribute cause the eventhandler to be executed immediately on event. Defined as "OnTextchanged='myhandler'", when the text has changed, a post will occur, and the myhandler function will be called.
16. The web forms framework is a huge boon for Web developers, both in UI creation and application logic. Once you've been developing with Web forms for a while, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them!
17. Accessing Data with ASP.Net: a. setup a database connection b. open the database connection c. fill a dataset with the desired date d. setup a dataview to display the data e. bind a server control to the dataview through the databinding method of the control.
18. ADO.NET full embraces XML, allowing it to communicate with XML compliant applications. ADO.Net revolves around the dataset. A dataset is a memory resident data store that provides a consistent program model for accessing data. A data set contains sets of data, constraints, relationships, and even multiple tables.
19. There are two ways to use a data store: a. Fill it with another data store c) create your own data store. The Data store has a table collections called ds.tables("name"). The ds.tables("name").primary=datacolumn defines the primary key where the datacolumn has two parameters a name and data type. Other columns can be defined for columns collection in by using ds.tables("name").columns.add(datacollection). Data Relationships form follows as, dataRelations("name",datacolumn1,datacolumn2) and joins the relations collection ds.tables("name").relations.add(datarelations). Last Datarows can be inserted using dr=new datarow where dr(index)=value and the index is the field index assigned a value. The datarow joins the ds.tables("name").rows.add(datarow), the datarows collection.
20. ADO.Net Dataset has a number of advantages: Scalability - no locks or active connections; Firewalls - XML is completely firewall proof; Programmability - does not require use of data contructs; sharing data - no data conversions are required; relationships - object structure maintains the relationship; data access - non sequential access to the multiple table data.
21. Many companies try to build propriety communication systems that allow services to be exchanged, but these are often to expensive and complicated to maintain. A web service is a programmable object that provides functionality that's accessible to any number of systems over the internet. Web services rely on the fact that any type of system or application can use http.
22. Why use web services. Corporations are trying to tie traditional applications together into a single composite entity. Web services provide a very simple mechanism for applications to communicate with each other. With Webservices you can reuse code that other people have developed. Web service files are vb.net or c# files that end in an .asmx extension.
23. A Webservice uses an XML format call the Service Description Language (SDL) to tell the clients what can be done with the service. Webservices have methods just as regular classes and business objects do.
24. Discover is the process by which a client finds out about a Web Service. Calling the service from code is simple.
Dim objCalculator As New CalculatorService
Rating: - n00b to guru in 21 days!
I might be crazy, but reading this book was actually a lot of fun! It covers everything you need to get going with ASP.NET. The focus early on with Access databases was a little rough for me because i was looking for more info on SQL (it does cover sql later on btw). The layout of the lessons felt good, and the author wasn't to 'rambley', which made it easy to read for hours and hours.
Rating:  - NOT for beginners
I spent 2 months on day 1. If the author had simply added, "If you can't install IIS, you can use Personal Web Server, which comes free from Microsoft," it would have saved me a lot of time. I gave up on the book.
Rating:  - Codes don't work????
I am perplexed at the users that rated this publication highly and I would be very interested in speaking with them to find out how they got the codes to work. About 80% of the codes that I type from this book result in me reiceiving errors in my application - even if I type it exactly the way the book does! I do not understand why Sams publishing would allow this book to be published and I would STRONGLY reccomend that browsers interested in this book do not purchase it. Especially if you are new to programming because it is extremely confusing for new users. I have a background in programming and I find it confusing at times. However the book's biggest disadvantage is that is the coding errors! I even downloaded the codes directly from the publisher and they still throw errors. So I know its not my mistake in typing them out because the downloaded ones from the publisher do not work either!
Rating: - Disappointing layout
Although the technical examples are acceptable, I found it difficult to follow the book and progress at a decent pace.
When you start the book, I believe you start with the objective of either learning VB or C# and then possibly learning the other language at a later stage. Some people may have the objective of both languages at the same time, however these I believe would be in the minority.
This is where I found the layout of the book to be atrocious. The author flips from one language to the other and then discusses general things in the next paragraph.
In my opinion, it would be very easy to put a VB identifier or picture next to the VB stuff and a C# identifier or picture next to the C# stuff to make it easy for the reader to work on the stuff s/he is interested in.
It's as if the book was written for VB and then the C# stuff was plugged in afterwards in a hurry to widen the audience. This is very confusing and slows your progress down because you are continuously wasting time by reading the C# stuff if you want to focus on VB and vice versa.
A little bit of thought on the layout would go a long way to improve the readability of the book.
My second criticism of the book is my personal choice and opinion. I believe the examples should be presented with a decent coding tool such as Visual Studio 2003 / 2005 and not in Notepad. I think very few (professional) developers nowadays code in NotePad. Even a free tool from Microsoft such as one of the Express Editions would be a better editing tool than NotePad.
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