Customer Reviews

Advanced ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls For .NET Framework 3.5

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fine resource for ASP.NET developers who want to build high performance, data-driven Web applications with a richer user interface. The introduction of ASP.NET AJAX 2.0 extensions caught many of us off-guard. We were suddenly thrown into intensive JavaScript programming on a Microsoft platform. Faced with a major learning curve, many of us fled to the convenience of the UpdatePanel control as a stepping stone.

There's no getting around it, it's going to take effort to get to the next level of AJAX capabilities using Microsoft's library. This book takes you into that journey - but not necessarily by the most direct route.

The first third of the book feels more like a solid ASP.NET AJAX reference than a "how-to-do-it" tutorial. The early chapters cover the library's types, namespaces, and classes in depth. It just seemed too early and too dry to be dealing with the nitty-gritty of the platform.

In my view, the book should start at Chapter Five. That's where you really make use of client-side functionality by adding it to server-based controls. As the authors point out, the AJAX library extensions help you overcome inconsistencies among browsers. You learn practical steps such as adding script resources, configuring ScriptManager, and getting into extender controls. The book leads you through the creation of an Image control extender that loops through a series of images at runtime. It's in this hands-on chapter that you really start to grasp the concepts. There's a substantial chapter of localization in ASP.NET AJAX. If you're taking on a translation, it would certainly be worth the price of the book.

At the outset, I referred to the UpdatePanel. It could be called the "lazy developer's AJAX control". What I learn from Chapter 7 is that the UpdatePanel can be a real headache for control developers. The authors warn of unexpected problems when your carefully-crafted control finds itself inside a partial postback environment.

The book's coverage of the asynchronous consumption of web services is solid. The authors go into all the important acronyms such as REST, and explain WCF from many angles including creating data contracts and service contracts.

In the chapter on Application Services, I discovered how much I didn't know about the client-side use of ASP.NET's Membership, Role, and User Profile services. If these AJAX extensions to the server-side API's escaped you too, you'll really benefit from the chapter.

Every ASP.NET developer knows about the AJAX Control Toolkit but Calderon and Rumerman take it further. They explain the overall architecture and then dig into how you can harness the Toolkit (and especially its animation support) in your own controls.

In summary, this is a very good book for learning to write your own AJAX controls. My main complaint is that the cart comes before the horse... You want to dig into building something interesting (call it 'instant gratification' if you wish) but need to wade through several chapters of dry architectural and reference-type information.

I found this book as very resource full and requires a serious and focussed read. I have a good ASP.NET 2.0 server development experience and little or basic experience on the client scripting and AJAX. I wanted to learn this piece of web development and being a professional I picked up this book even though the title says 'Advanced' only because the advanced and pro series books generally tend to have more technical details that are needed in a real project and have more serious material.
I have tried most of the example code and took my own time learning the details before moving forward to a new concept.
The authors really know their subject very well. The topics were well paced and well structured. I suggest reading the book thorougly and not to skim the material. The book also features a great chapter on JavaScript.
All in all, a worthy buy for serious learners.

I would classify this book as a hardcore, deeply technical look at JavaScript, AJAX, and the Atlas farmework (I am only a few chapters in :) )

The first few chapters I have read so far covered JavaScript more in depth then I think anyone human should ever go with JavaScript but there were some interesting nuances that I didn't previously know about. I haven't got into the meat of the AJAX stuff yet but if the first few chapters are any indication of the depth, this book will be on the "hardcore" level.

This book is really quite good. After having read through it I decided against the creation of AJAX oriented server controls in my projects implementation of AJAX. AJAX on the Microsoft platform is pretty varied and there are plenty of alternatives. For the most part, I've gone with vanilla, "poor man's" AJAX implementations and use UpdatePanels extensively.

That being said, the contents of this book were very enlightening to say the least. So many developers out there are working for companies where there is not enough time to think. So they forge ahead as fast as possible and start throwing UpdatePanels on their pages. Then weird, inexplicable things happen. They learn a few things in quick Google searches but obstinate bugs remain. This book will clear some of that up.

Think you're not using AJAX server controls. Think again. Just look at the source of your web page and you will see the Sys.Application.initialize method being called. Wonder why your registered scriptblocks are exhibiting indeterminate behavior. Well, you better start registering some handlers in your startup scripts with an assignment to Sys.Application.add_load. add_load is called only after AJAX is fully loaded and not before. Tidbits like this can help prevent hours of hair pulling madness.

In addition, this book has details on WCF proxy generation with the ScriptManager, JSON and the WCF RESTful protocol for AJAX, how to utilize script resources, embedded web resources and some details on the HTTP pipeline. My opinion is that if you are doing AJAX on the Microsoft platform you should really read this book. If you are planning on developing AJAX server controls then you should really, really read this book. Yes, AJAX 4.0 is about to come out, but from what it looks like, that will be on top of all this and only add the next step which is client-side data binding and support for HTML templates. If nothing else, try to get this book used for a good deal and it will provide a solid foundation going forward.

This is an excellent book for developers looking to lean more than just the basics of ASP.NET AJAX, to truly understand how ASP.NET AJAX works. This book contains some fairly advanced subjects that are probably too much for a beginner, but great for the experienced developer.

I started programming on the internet with Internet Explorer 2.0 on a Mac Performa using notepad, and then using Claris Home Page. I was using the AJAX technologies well before 2000. It is interesting to see how engrained into our browser development they have become. A few years later I started developing Windows Form applications, which move into the Smart Client context, and now RIA using WPF and Silverlight. I have gotten my hands dirty with browser applications a few times since 2002, but I try to avoid them like the plague.

I am a firm believer that the browser is being abused, would love to develop every day without it, but have found that is still not possible today when targeting home users and environments you do not control. That is not the case with our project, we should be using WPF, but those in charge do not care.

Why all the useless blather? Because I want you to know I have absolutely zero interest in ASP.NET AJAX, but I have to get up to speed on it because it is being forced on our team.

That said, this book sucks, because it is written so well I cannot put it down. These guys zero in on ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls, but they take the time to go in-depth on all the technologies that ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls interact with. Including JavaScript, JSON, HTTP Handlers, the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit, REST, and WCF.

This book has given me a new perspective on the present day browser environment that will make this next project enjoyable.

If you are getting started with ASP.NET AJAX I highly recommend this book. It digs into the guts of ASP.NET AJAX and will give the inside story on how the ASP.NET AJAX Controls are working and how to build high quality controls yourself.

I would suggest being proficient in ASP.NET, have a good understand of JavaScript, and have played around with the ASP.NET AJAX Extension and the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit.

The examples in the book are great, and the downloadable code is well organized and very usable.

This book covers literally everything you would ever need to know about using AJAX on the ASP.NET platform. It is full of useful examples. I find my self referring to it quite often.

Overall, I find this book to be quite detailed, unraveling the deeper "secrets" of ASP.NET AJAX architecture far better than any other book in the market. My only gripe, I guess, is the lack of a more practical coverage on AJAX Control Toolkit; it shows you how to extend the library but doesn't cover examples on how to use the various controls in the toolkit. For that, you should either refer to ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX (Unleashed) by Robert Foster or the CodePlex's examples online.

These guys know there stuff. It's not a book you can skim. That's because the book is quite detailed. To me, that's good. The errata that often plagues technical books is minimal and the downloadable source code provides some very informative examples.

This book has a lot of details. It's hard to just get on with it while reading thru the chapters because the authors seem to think they should try and combine reference material with learning material. Don't get me wrong, I like details, when I need them. However, it is really hard to just do any example in this book without getting bogged down in why rather than how. I think chapter 10 actually starts in on "How", but that's TEN chapters and 500 pages into the book!?!

My other complaint is the vocabulary in this book can sometimes be a complete put off. Instead of saying things like "server side" they say "server-centric" which I guess means the same thing, but why change what everyone is used to saying?

But, the book does have a lot of details and it does belong on your shelf if you want to learn serious ASP.NET AJAX and have a good reference for it. I just don't think it's the book you should read from cover to cover, especially as an intro. Dino Esposito's book is probably a better start.