ASP.NET 3.5 Social Networking (Paperback)

~ Andrew Siemer (Author)
Key Phrases: model view presenter, assembly name, open outlook, Column Name Data Type Allow Nulls, User Accounts, Andrew Siemer (more...)

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Product Description

In Detail

Social Networking is all about developing connections or ties between friends and associates. While people have always networked with one another the Internet has allowed us to network with people all over the world easily. Any interest or cause can support its own social network, where fans and followers can meet, chat, and share their views. But building a social networking site from scratch involves some complex logic, and some serious coding.

This book shows how to build a scalable, enterprise-ready social network using ASP.NET. The book uses the latest features of ASP.NET to provide a platform that is efficient, easy to maintain, and extensible. Whether you want to build your own social network, are developing a social site for a customer or employer, or just want a practical guide to developing complex ASP.NET applications then this book is ideal for you.

The book starts by planning the essential features of our social network, and then building a 'community framework' that will give our site a solid foundation and enable us to add all our social networking features. We then go on to create user accounts, profile pages, messaging systems, 'friend' relationships between members, media galleries, blogs, message boards, groups, and more. Along the way you will see LINQ, MVC, AJAX, and other features of ASP.NET 3.5 put to practical and interesting uses.

What you will learn from this book?

• Make key decisions about architecture and the tools to use
• Build a solid 'community framework' to give your site a strong foundation; the principles explored this framework will apply to any large-scale web application
• Create user accounts, set up a permissions system, and handle password encryption
• Work with user profiles, and establish 'friend' relationships between different users
• Let users customize their profile and communicate with one another
• Understand core concepts of LINQ to SQL and work with it in a layered environment
• Moderate the site, ensuring safety, dealing with cross-site scripting (XSS), privacy, and decency
• Utilize the Model View Presenter pattern with ASP.NET 3.5 to enable Test Driven Development
• Add an internal search engine using SQL Server and Lucene.NET
• Work with appropriate design patters to create a scalable long-lasting enterprise framework

Approach

Each chapter starts by showing the user experience we are going to create in the chapter. It then has a section discussing the major design decisions we face in building these features, and finally presents the 'solution' - including the overall architecture and highlighting the most important code elements.

The book presents a lot of real-world code, with comprehensive explanation and discussion. The full social network application is available for download from the Packt website, for you to examine, study, and modify.

Who this book is written for?

This book is written for ASP.NET and C# developers who want to build an enterprise-grade Social Network, either for their own business purposes or as a contract job for another company.

The book assumes you have prior experience of developing web applications using ASP.NET 3.5, C# 3.0, SQL Server 2005/2008, and Visual Studio .NET 2008; it focuses on topics that will be of interest to existing developers - not on providing step-by-step examples for each detail.

About the Author

Andrew Siemer

Andrew Siemer is currently the enterprise architect at OTX Research. He has worked as a software engineer, enterprise architect, trainer, and author since 1998 when he got out of the Army. Andrew has consulted with many companies on the topics of e-commerce, social networking, and business systems. To name a few, he has worked with eUniverse (AllYouCanInk.com), PointVantage (MyInks.com), Callaway Golf (CallawayConnect.com), Guidance Software (GuidanceSoftware.com), and Intermix Media (Grab.com, AmericanIdol.com, FoxSports.com, FlowGo.com). In addition to his daily duties he also offers various classes in .NET, C#, and other web technologies to local students in his area as well as blogging in his *free* time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 580 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing (December 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847194788
• ISBN-13: 978-1847194787
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #302,443 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Networking ASP.NET Style, March 2, 2009

By	Robert S. Robbins (Williamsport, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent book for anyone contemplating the development of a social networking web site using ASP.NET, although you may find the cutting edge technology used to be a little too advanced if you are only familiar with the ASP.NET Framework. The most useful aspect of the application design will be the database schema which meets the project requirements in a well thought out manner.

There are a few social networking features that are not covered like threaded comments and user profiles that can be customized using CSS but other common features are implemented including tag clouds and content rating.

Although this is a thick book, 556 pages, most of the content is code listings so it won't actually take you too long to read it. Building a social networking web application is a huge project which a solitary developer could hardly manage alone so just reading this book is not going to get you there.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Acronym Fear? (DDD, TDD, MVP, etc?) This is the book for you., December 29, 2008

By	Joseph C. - See all my reviews

I am a Consultant who started to look into Domain Drive Design, Test Driven Design, and Model View Presenter when thrown into a recent gig. It's been very challenging on my own time with my daily work duties to get caught up on these improved methods for developing highly scalable, enterprise ready solutions. I was so thankful this book came along. I am only on chapter 3 + having read the two appendixes (they are around 100 pages together) I have started to understand everything at an amazing pace. Not only is the subject matter fun (who doesn't have a Myspace or Facebook page and wonder, how would i do that if i wrote it?) it also features a plethora of open source tools and tips. Not to mention the author gets amazing kudos for even mentioning ReSharper *my favorite 3rd party tool* he also includes tips and tricks throughout the book on better ways to use it. If you are college grad looking to see how a real development team would build a enterprise product or even a veteran developer looking to sharpen his skill sets in this new age of collaboration and technology (yes world we are already on .net 3.5, not to mention 2.0 has existed for some time!) this is the book for you to get.

*Another thing off topic but might be interesting to some.*

Most of my work is done in SharePoint and I feel that as a bonus to learning these new methodologies I am also getting some cool ideas to help me extend SharePoint in a more collaborative way. Even though this book has nothing to do with SharePoint. DDD and MVP lend itself well to SharePoint development.

If you are still unsure go to the publishers website download appendix A and B and get what I feel are huge bonuses to an amazing book. Appendix B is a great quick start guide to test driven design.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have book for every .net developer, December 21, 2008

By	Vishal Uttamchandani (LA, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read quite a few books on [..] and by far this is the best. Additionally this book showcases some of the best open source tools available to improve productivity and goes a step further by explaining how these tools form a great integrated development environment.

With Microsoft coming up with so many new things in short intervals its difficult to keep up the pace. This books comes handy as it explains the new concepts, well known [...] areas and usage of open source tools by walking through creation of a robust and scalable social networking site.

Bottom line - Highly recommended !!!