ASP.NET Unleashed [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Stephen Walther (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Aimed at Windows Web developers of all levels, ASP.NET Unleashed provides a truly example-packed tutorial on beginning through advanced topics in ASP.NET programming. This mammoth text is never dense, and its clear sample code and ordering of topics will make it a strong choice for learning ASP.NET inside and out.

Dedicated to the principle that more is more, and weighing in at over 1,400 pages, this title covers all the bases in the new ASP.NET. Though it's comprehensive, the author takes care to present the basics of programming first. Early sections cover the basics of building Web pages with built-in ASP.NET Web controls. Only later on does the text range farther afield. Standout sections on mobile devices will let you work with today's wireless devices using both WAP and specialized HTML on the Pocket PC platform. Coverage on the extensive support for databases in ADO.NET and bound controls marks this book's practical focus on the basics. Material on tapping the powers of Microsoft SQL Server and the Indexing Service for providing full-text searches in Web sites is a notable standout here.

Later chapters look at basics of the much-advertised Web services, but also discuss ways to extend security and data sharing. Advanced bells and whistles are illustrated with a Web service to export pattern matching across Web sites--a worthwhile example. More advanced topics round out this book, including a tutorial on .NET APIs for common functions like the file system, strings, and regular expressions. A later section on combining ASP.NET with Microsoft Message Queue Server to provide asynchronous messaging will extend the range of your applications.

Final sections illustrate key concepts using a job site and an online store. And the last few pages in this 1,400-page tome are devoted to a handy reference for ASP.NET server-side controls, which is sure to be a useful feature.

Few titles combine so many useful examples, and the choice and ordering of material here makes this a book that will benefit two distinct audiences: those brand-new to ASP.NET and those who want to extend the basics with new capabilities using Web services and other high-end whistles and bells. There's a pleasing amount of white space in the text, which is dominated by dozens and dozens of clear examples rather than long-winded explanations, making this title ideal for those who like to learn new programming techniques through examples. --Richard Dragan

Product Description
With this valuable guide, readers learn the advanced features of ASP.NET, and how to apply them in their own Internet applications. This in-depth, code-intensive title covers a broad range of advanced ASP.NET topics. Softcover. CD-ROM included.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1464 pages
• Publisher: Sams; illustrated edition edition (November 26, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672320681
• ISBN-13: 978-0672320682
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #730,098 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent reference -- Inadequate tutorial -- No C# code, April 23, 2002

By	Jakob Hussfelt (Sweden) - See all my reviews

To begin with, this book isn't clear about what language is covered throughout the book. It seems it's trying to hide that it covers only Visual Basic. If you're into C#, you have to translate the examples yourself although these translations are ridiculously simple about 29 times out of 30. That 30th time, a certain amount of C# experience or extensive newsgroup searches will be needed.

If you want a decent VB reference you can go for this book or simply use the free .NET Framework SDK Documentation. The advantage of having this book at hand is that it sheds some light on the topics with its own examples.

As a tutorial to read from cover to cover, I think the author could have done a better job. If you read e.g. pages 84-131, you will read about the same text repeated four times with the exceptions being the search-and-replace that seems to have been performed on some words. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but not that much. I guess that's the price of having one author managing to write a 1400 pages book on a new technology all by himself, pressured by time. This isn't to be seen as critics against Walther though, he seems to be very knowledgeable on the subject.

I could recommend this book to VB programmers wanting something more than the free Microsoft documentation for ASP.NET. This is not a strong recommendation though. Have a look at the alternatives as well.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book makes mastering ASP.NET easy, December 6, 2001

By	Bradley Johnson "brad@lawofficesofbradleyjohn... (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

I've bought the Wrox books and the 21 Days book, but this book is by far the best!

ASP.NET Unleased covers advanced topics that aren't even mentioned in the other books. The introductory chapters on Web Controls are great, but the book really gets down to business when discussing database access and ADO.NET.

The book also has great chapters on the IE WebControls (like the TreeView and TabStrip controls), GDI+ (for generating graphics on the fly), and two excellent chapters on building custom server controls.

For my money, the others books I've read don't even come close. If you are only going to buy one book on ASP.NET, this is the book.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good ASP.NET coverage but not for C# developers, February 11, 2002

By	Web Dude (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This books covers pretty much all aspects of ASP.NET in good detail. The examples are well documented and many apply to common everyday problems. I've only two problems with the book:

1. All the source is in VB.NET. I thought the book would offer the examples in both VB and C# or at least offer an online copy of the source in C#. But I admit this is my fault since I didn't check more carefully before I bought the book.

2. The author constantly keeps refering to the samples "on the CD accompanying the book." I find this very annoying since there's NO cd accompanying the book! I'm not sure how this could've escaped the editors and the publisher. Either they knew there would be no CD and didn't care to revise the material or they didn't ship the CD. Having the source on CD is not a big deal since you can get it online, but it's just a matter of respecting the readers.