Developing ASP Components (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Shelley Powers (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565927508 | ISBN-13: 978-1565927506 | Publication Date: March 2001 | Edition: Second Edition

Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology has become wildly popular with web developers. However, the techniques for developing custom ASP components, not to mention the inevitable snags and pitfalls, are not well documented. What's more, the successful ASP component developer must be a jack-of-all-trades, with some knowledge of COM and COM+, threading models, and the ASP object model, as well as a mastery of one or more language tools and development environments.

That's where Developing ASP Components, 2nd Edition, comes in. Its first section explores the topics everyone needs to know to develop effective ASP components:

• Configuring the ASP development environment.
• ASP components and the Component Object Model (COM).
• ASP components and threading models.
• ASP components and Component Services, which provide a variety of services to ASP components.
• The objects, properties, methods, and events available in the ASP object model.

ASP components are language independent, and developers increasingly tend to use more than a single language tool. Thus the remainder of the book focuses on ASP component development using one of two major development tools--Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C++ (with the ActiveX Template Library)--along with a number of other languages, such as Perl and Delphi. Each section focuses on the issues that concern the ASP component developer using that particular development environment. These issues include:

• Accessing ASP's intrinsic objects.
• Accessing data using ADO.
• Creating n-tier web applications with VB.
• Handling persistence using MFC along with Visual C++/ATL.

It's this strong focus on two major development environments, along with a thorough grounding in essential ASP topics, that makes Developing ASP Components the definitive resource for the ASP application and component developer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Aimed at more experienced VB or C++ developers, Developing ASP Components, Second Edition gives plenty of advanced advice for creating and using COM-based components, which are a must for serious scalability and performance on the Microsoft Web platform.

This book excels at showing the inner workings and issues involved in designing custom COM-based components in VB, ATL, and/or MFC, as well as tapping the built-in components that come standard with COM, including transactions, mail objects (with CDO), and database programming (with ADO). In particular, for the C++/ATL/MFC developer, practical sources of information (and sample code) are in short supply, and for this readership, the book fills a particularly worthwhile niche. Much of it uses VB in examples for designing effective, high-performance components.

Several early sections look at the details of COM-based components (including the notoriously difficult threading models, along with similar details). The author does a good job of explaining this challenging topic. The practical examples of using built-in COM objects and services on the Windows platform really make this book a winner. The sample code and hints for tapping such COM-based standards as transactions, Active Directory, message queueing, CDO, and ADO are very helpful. Better yet, the book covers the same ground for C++ programmers using ATL (and MFC) to create the most lightweight (and potentially the fastest) Web components available today.

Until the new .NET Framework arrives later in 2001, COM (and COM+) is still the best way to build and share components for use with ASP in Windows. Developing ASP Components shows you how to build components that are fully integrated into the Microsoft Web platform. Whether you build custom components, or just want to use services in VB/C++ code that are available to your Web applications, this title will clue you into getting the most out of your components. It's a source of expert information that you won't likely find anywhere else. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Fundamentals of ASP components and COM+
• Setting up IIS
• Using ADSI for programmatic server administration
• Introduction to COM components (including standard interfaces and design issues)
• Threads
• Apartments and contexts
• Using MTS and COM+ services for transactions
• Using scripts with COM+ objects
• Tutorial for a Visual Basic ASP COM component
• Using ADO COM components
• Using XML with VB ASP
• Enabling e-mail with CDO
• Using the Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI) and MSMQ with ASP components
• C++ tutorial for building and using COM components (including ATL and MFC)
• Sample code for both Visual Basic and C++ programmers
• Persistence with ATL and MFC
• Using COM with Java/Visual J++
• Perl
• ActiveState's PDK and Borland Delphi
• Using the Windows Scripting Host (WSH)
• ASP built-in object quick reference

Review

'For the developer wanting to create their own ASP components, this book provides an excellent starting point and technical reference resource. It's accurate, readable and well organized. Looking at the errata lists on the O'Reilly web site exposes the high level of accuracy and attention to detail that have gone into this book. Almost all of the corrections are in the further reading sections that accompany each chapter and most are changed URLs (which is more a reflection of the problems associated with the web than the quality of the book)... What more can be said, if you are serious about writing your own ASP components, take a look at this book.' - Dave Rutlidge Cvu, February 2001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565927508
• ISBN-13: 978-1565927506
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,698,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrific for new ASP programmers, January 21, 2000

By 

M. J KILLEEN (Collingdale, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Developing ASP Components (Paperback)

If you are one of the many programmers who have recently moved to ASP -- you will greatly appreciate this book. This was the first book I read that fully explores how to leverage the technology you already know well (VB, C++, or Java -- with examples throughout) and leverage that to write powerful ASP Components (DLLs) that can do most of the work you need including data access and HTML generation. Theres a textbook examination of COM for those who like that sort of thing, but you can jump right in to the parts on MTS and separate sections on the development tool of your choice. Well worth studying.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, but.., November 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Developing ASP Components (Paperback)

This is a good book on ASP components and gives a good introduction. It covers developing ASP components with VB,java and VC++. Only thing is lot of information(like if you mainly use VB, you won't be reading the stuff on VC,Java) may not be required and you can get lot of similar information from other COM books(like Distributed components - Ted Pattison).So maybe you won't want to buy a book on just ASP components and rather spend the money buying a book that covers COM in more detail.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is the only one that actually covers ASP COM, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Developing ASP Components (Paperback)

I read this book and in a matter of a week I was up and running ASP components and interacting with MTS. This book will teach you not only how to program your components in VB but also VC++ and VJ++. The book also teachs you how to setup your components in MTS and what exactly each option means in the MTS component setup. If you can only buy one book about ASP and COM this is the book. This is also a good book for VB programmers looking for an introduction to web developing.