Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 (Expert's Voice in .NET) [Paperback]

Laurence Moroney (Author), Matthew MacDonald (Ed.) (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1590595637 | ISBN-13: 978-1590595633 | Edition: 1

ASP.NET 2.0 is the latest version of Microsoft’s current ASP.NET 1.1 technology, which is fast becoming the accepted technology standard for creating dynamic web pages on the Windows platform. It is now used across the board from start-ups to blue-chip multi-national corporations. ASP.NET 2.0 is building on this solid foundation and adding new improvements. The new technology will be faster to code, offer a more powerful set of tools (for example MasterPages and Generics) and will also run quicker when deployed, so that customers enjoy a significantly better user experience.

Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB.NET is a book that understands this. Following on from Apress’ well regarded Pro ASP.NET 1.1 title, this is a fresh book rooted in the best-practices and pragmatic style of its predecessor. The author clearly explains how ASP.NET 2.0 works for the professional programmer – covering both the brand new innovations and those features that have been carried over from the previous version. Knowing that while new features are important, it is how you use the technology as a cohesive whole that really matters, Laurence Moroney and Matthew MacDonald adopt a broad-based approach explaining how all the features – both old and new – interrelate. This gives readers the solid understanding they need to code real applications.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Laurence Moroney has been a software professional for more years than he’d like to count. He graduated with a degree in physics, and subsequently discovered that there are very few "Mad Scientist" job adverts in the help-wanted sections, so he started working as a VB coder for a company that created device drivers and configuration software for building security and control systems. From there he went on to being an architect for security and surveillance systems for businesses as diverse as casinos, airports, and jails, and would be quick to point out that the three are more similar than you may think. At this moment in time, he is an architect for a financial services company in Times Square, New York City, where he was originally hired to be a Microsoft .NET evangelist and technology specialist in a strong Java environment, only to get to quite like Java, too. And the coffee isn’t bad either.

Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He is a regular writer for developer journals such as Inside Visual Basic, ASPToday, and Hardcore Visual Studio .NET, and he's the author of several books about programming with .NET, including User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, The Book of VB .NET, and .NET Distributed Applications. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1296 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (January 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590595637
• ISBN-13: 978-1590595633
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,397,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Learning Tool and Reference Tool, July 24, 2006

By 

Brian C. Lanham (Roanoke, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

I was looking for a solid, comprehensive, yet approachable ASP.NET 2.0 book for a long time when I stumbled across Pro ASP.NET 2.0. I flipped through it and quickly realized that it is both the learning and reference tool I was wanting. Since getting the book, I have not swayed from that position. This book is a great way to get started and to keep going in your ASP.NET development efforts.

Although large (it weighs in at over 1200 pages), it is well organized and easily accessible. The material builds on itself in such a way that you don't need to read the first 900 pages to effectively use the later chapters. Additionally, the content is organized in a practical approach so you can get started relatively quickly. I find this technique helpful in that it I have more information when it comes time to answer specific questions. I never found myself "wishing" I know more in order to understand a concept.

On the down-side, there are some glaring typographical errors throughout the text. It is pretty obvious in some places that there is a copy/paste error from the C# version to the VB version. None of the errata detracts from the book for me. In fact, in some cases, the little research I did to clarify something actually helped.

All told, I have and continue to highly recommend this book to colleagues and clients alike. It is both an excellent learning tool and a great reference. The fact that one person wrote the entire text and in two programming languages amazes me. The author has an easy writing style that promotes absorbing the information quickly. I anticipate this book becoming tattered quite quickly!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Missing, Inconsistent, Overdone and Theoretical, April 29, 2007

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YisMan - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

I am reading this book now for some time. I have worked through the first 5 chapters and I am now in middle of the sixth. The content might be pretty accurate and maybe even comprehensive but there are 4 MAJOR problems which overshadow anything else. They are what I wrote in the title:

A) MISSING: The author almost never starts by stating "add a new class and name it whatever" or "add three textboxes and one label". just throws you something like "heres the complete code" now from the snapshot i am able to figure out how he named the webform, which controls did he add how he named those controls etc. the source code on the Apress site is a must, cuz otherwise you'll be guessing you're head off on every page. Every 2 minutes I'm asking myself:
should i add a module now? no? maybe soon?
is this a new namespace?
do i add that to the previous web form? or is it a replacement?
is that a table, or div tags?
other than that he also usually forgets to tell you when a namespace needs to be "imports"ed. probably to leave a challenge to the user why the editor is underlining all the object types.

B) INCONSISTENT: most snippets of code that are more than a few lines will always have some naming conflicts. in line 1 the button is name cmdSave in line 10 it might be cmdSubmit. I mean this didn't happen once or twice it is a constant problem. As i type, i'm indebted to the VB editor in VWD for cathing these booboos.

C) OVERDONE: this might not be a real problem. but as i am not yet such a seasoned ASP.NET 2.0 developer, i find reading pages upon pages of Http pipelines, ASP.NET providers, multiple comparison charts of State management options and custom tracing capabilities before even teaching how to put up a simple data-driven website with simple user and group options, extremely overdone and over comprehensive. if the author wanted to show how much he knows about asp.net 2.0 he could have done so in the preface.

D) THEORETICAL: Everything taught is immediately followed by some code snippet which you could try and figure out where to plug it in and see if it works. he never (so far) builds upon something already done. I am now in the sixth chapter and have a mumble-jumble of techniques to accomplish a variety of odd and end functionality. I haven't the slightest idea of how to build a real world site.

Again, I'm in the sixth chapter only. I'm still hoping to find some useful information in the remaining ones. Just felt I should let people know about it to save them from aggravation.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction to ASP.NET 2005, September 28, 2006

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Dharma Adi Putra ".: Dharma :." (Bali, Indonesia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

Although this book is only an introduction, the structure and depth are more than fine. After all, to discuss every single thing ASP.NET 2.0 has to offer would require several volume of HUGE books. I would suggest this book to anyone wants to learn ASP.NET 2.0, even with background other than VB.

To the authors, you did a great job!!!