Customer Reviews

A First Look at ASP.NET v 2.0

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I ordered this book a few weeks after ordering my tech preview copy of Visual Studio.NET "Whidbey" and got them both in the mail on the same day. I've read the book and am just starting to work with the amazing new tools, technologies and techniques it describes, and I can't remember the last time I was this excited about an upcoming developer tools release. ASP.NET 2.0 resolves 99% of the issues I have with ASP.NET 1.x and introduces lots of new mind-boggling features that I never knew I needed, but now I wonder how I ever lived without.

If you're an ASP.NET developer and are planning to upgrade your skills to the new platform, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this book. I read it in about two weeks of bedtime reading and could have finished it in a few days if I'd invested any real time, so it's not a big investment of effort to get through. The authors do a great job of sticking to just the new features and assuming that their readers all know ASP.NET 1.x pretty thoroughly, so there was little wasted space. All code samples were in VB.NET, which was a little weird, but it was very refreshing not to see the same code repeated in VB anc C#, which so many books do to pad their page count.

If I have one complaint about the book, it's that there is no reference in it to the sample code and applications available online. The authors have a web site with working versions of all of the example applications used in the book, along with downloadable code so those of us with the tech preview of Whidbey can have a good starting point. Here's the URL:

http://www.ipona.com/samples/

First of all, anyone interested in this book should turn to the MSDN library for the latest info and samples. The problem with this book is that it's _already_ outdated in terms of the features that will be included (and not included) with .Net 2.0.

While it does "hold your hand" as you play with the shiny new toys in ASP.Net 2.0 like GridView and DetailsView, what will ultimately happen is that you will find yourself being confused by what's in the book and what's actually implemented since the framework hasn't even been finalized yet and is constantly being updated (i.e. ObjectDataSources and ObjectSpaces).

My personal recommendation is to skim this book in a bookstore (or pick it up used) to get an idea of some of the features that are in version 2 of the framwork.

Aside from the above, I find that the contents really focus more on UI and some of the additions to ASP.Net such as GridView, DetailsView, Membership, Personalization, WebParts, etc.; there is really no discussion about some of the other features of .Net 2.0 (framework as a whole) which are rather significant like Generics.

In the end, I think this book isn't going to occupy much of your time or interest or fill any particular need that can't be filled by visiting MSDN for the latest info on .Net 2.0

Unfortunately I don't have the ASP.NET 2.0 Alpha, but I do have this book, which is certainly the next best thing. I have to admit, I wasn't sure how much I would get out of a book like this without having access to the software being discussed, but the chapters actually manage to be interesting on their own merit.

If you're an early adopter or subscribe to the "knowledge is power" model, then this book makes an excellent read. Going through this book should give you an edge over developers that wait for the final release of ASP.NET 2.0.

The only downside to this book is the fact that I now can't wait for the next VS.NET to arrive. "Whidbey" looks to be a MAJOR upgrade for VB/C# web developers (unlike the 2003 upgrade).

Just get this book. While ASP.NET 2.0 release is some time in the future, there are things you can do today that will make the transition easier. For instance, if you are already creating pages using some sort of Master Page implementation, look at Chapter 5 on Master Pages to see if there is anything you can do now to make the transition to the version 2.0 Master Pages easier. Even if you can't move to ASP.NET 2.0 as soon as it comes out, some of the ideas that are baked into 2.0 (for instance, the Provider Design Pattern) can be used today to produce a more flexible ASP.NET 1.1 application (for instance, the Provider model is already in use today in a version of the .Text blogging engine, using .NET 1.1).

So, if you are moving to 2.0 as soon as you can, get this book, and if you are not, it is also a good read for the ideas that you can implement today!

I attended PDC this year, where Microsoft was able to show off their latest and greatest. I mostly attended the ASP.NET 2.0 tracks. It was great to see all the new features of ASP.NET 2.0, but my problem was being able to remember everything. The slide decks area available, but without specific step-by-step examples, even those are hard to follow along.

Those of us lucky enough to attend PDC or with an MSDN universal subscription, have access to the ASP.NET 2.0 alpha. For the rest of the world with an interest in "Whidbey", the next best thing to the actual bits is this book.

Even without being able to reproduce the examples live, simply reading the book gives you an insight to how things are going to be in the VERY near future. All of the examples are very easy to read and understand. Every page I turn, I learn something new, about how ASP.NET 2.0 is going to save me hours of programming time developing our core product, www.myKB.com.

Every serious ASP.NET developer should have a copy of this book.

Scott Cate
www.ScottCate.com

I started working with ASP .Net when the first beta went out in 2001. It was so much better than anything out there at the time that I bought an MSDN subscription and jumped in head first, despite not having a job at the time.

Weird how history repeats itself. I am working this time, because of my initial pursuit of the .Net platform. During that time, I spent a great deal of time working with it to make slick content management apps and portal sites. As much as I'd like to pat myself on the back for all of that, Microsoft clearly understood I shouldn't have had to do that.

The names on the cover of this book should be familiar. Homer has been writing MS-centric books for years. Howard has always been active on www.asp.net, a refreshing thing to see given his position at Microsoft. His team's participation in online communities has largely gone away, but this book shows what they've been up to. It's hard to review the book without reviewing what v2.0 is brining to the table. It changes everything, again.

The book is not for new developers to the platform, though much of the declarative programming info should be easily digested by anyone. If you've been living and breathing this platform for a couple of years, you need to see what's in this book. It'll have you buying an MSDN subscription again when v2 goes beta in the spring.

The collaborative effort of software development experts Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, and Rob Howard, A First Look At ASP.NET v. 2.0 is a methodical handbook, reference, and self-teaching aid for the Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Web development platform. Demonstrating how to effectively use ASP.NET to reduce development time and associated costs; improve the performance of Web applications and services; extend applications to mobile clients, and so much more, A First Look At ASP.NET v. 2.0 is a superbly organized and presented introductory guide filled from cover to cover with examples, sample code, and broad overviews -- as well as specific troubleshooting problems to watch out for.

Christmas time is here, the geese have gotten fat and the only thing left to worry about is the present for yourself. You mean you didn't reward yourself for buying everyone else presents and developing like a mad dog? Why not grab a copy of "A First Look at ASP.NET v2.0"? You'll be planning next year's Christmas list in no time. This new tome is the first by the prolific writing team of Homer and Sussman for Addison Wesley and fits very neatly into their .NET Development Series. At a little under 500 pages, this is as complete a preview of the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 - due for release in Winter '04 - as you could wish for the three months before we the public can actually get our hands on a beta of the code itself in the spring.

Written against the Whidbey preview code handed out at PDC '03, all the examples are in VB .NET so there may be some change in syntax for C# users but are simple enough to follow in your head. The only problem is that your head might be spinning too much from the well-described and frankly groovy new features described within. There's a large `wow' factor to most of this book which, coupled to the well-worded text and excellent examples (available online at www.daveandal.net), makes you wish the final release of .NET 2.0 was this Christmas gone, and not the one to come.

Chapter one sets up the book nicely with a balanced summary of everything covered in the book in twenty four pages leaving it up to you where you want to go (sic) next. The remaining twelve chapters fill out the detail as you'd expect, but in a seemingly random order. It might be a stroke of genius to push topics the average Joe wouldn't normally read up front to bring them to his attention, but equally it might make just as much sense to group UI, business and data tier topics together, mightn't it? Not that it matters really. Whether you're reading a chapter on its new caching system, its improved security or the evolution of its personalization features, this book does a great job in putting across the main tenets of the new ASP.NET as well: less code, more usable features, mobile platform integration and quicker to build. Alex Homer and Dave Sussman are rightly regarded as two of the communities foremost authors on ASP.NET. With a little help from one of the ASP.NET team's product managers, this book just proves it again.

Now back to next Christmas. Now should I just ask for Visual Studio Whidbey, or a new computer to run it on? If I don't need to write much code, maybe I could get a tablet PC and build web apps with a stylus? Bet I could. I'll definitely need the follow up to this book for the final release, then I can plan world domination and buy that penthouse I've always wanted. Hope Santa's got a big enough sack.

A First Look is one of the first, if not the first, books on "Whidbey", the codename for Microsoft's new version of ASP.NET version 2.0. At the time I'm writing this, ASP.NET v2.0 "Whidbey" is in the Alpha stages and not even released into Beta, but already it has caused quite a stir in the ASP.NET development circles. The latest information I have heard is that Beta 1 will be out at the beginning of May 2004 and Beta 2 will be the first release that includes the "go-live" license so that anyone can host a website using Whidbey.

The first chapter of the book starts out with an introduction to "Whidbey" and briefly covers many of the impressive features, giving a strong "wow factor". The second chapter touches on Visual Studio "Whidbey" and then the rest of the book covers "Whidbey" development and administration in detail. Whidbey is something worth writing about and the authors have done a great job covering the whole spectrum of impressive new features.

So, what type of book is this? It's not just a book trying to show off the ease and power of Whidbey, otherwise I'm sure I would have been bored before too long. It's a book that is both a reference book and a readable book on "Whidbey" that gets into the features in detail and expounds on the properties, methods and other aspects of v2.0. There is really so much to cover that some parts weren't covered at all or only briefly in this book. For example XML and ADO.NET each get their own book. Also, as this is specifically about the changes that Whidbey offers, you won't see mention of anything that isn't new or changed. Again, the target audience isn't the non-ASP.NET developer.

Code examples were generously given, and in my opinion, a good balance of small and simple, offering a foundation to work with. One example where I wasn't disappointed was the Client callbacks, a new Client-Side Script feature. The description of it was good enough but I was itching to see a code example, and sure enough they gave one. Expect to see code examples in Visual Basic for most of the major features and many of the sub-features. There are dozens of great code examples that will at least get your feet wet.

I have to try hard to come up with any cons for this book, but there are two things I noticed. I found that there wasn't consistency throughout the book in regards to documentation, code examples and other reference information. Sometimes you would find reference charts, code examples, even flow charts while other times there is just a quick mention in paragraph form of a new feature or change to an existing feature. This really isn't as bad as it sounds, the features that have the largest target audience and `wow factor' are well covered. The second thing I wish this had is a better means of locating the reference information. There isn't a cross-reference chart or means to quickly find much of the great information, and when I have used this as my reference guide for some development it look me a while to find what I was looking for. But, with a few bookmarks and a highlighter this could quickly become a great tool to use as a primary reference for development in Whidbey.

One of the things that I appreciated most was the inside knowledge that all three authors offer. They don't just cover specs and reference material, but give information on the goals of the ASP.NET Team on various features, and vision on what will be available in the Beta and final releases of the product. This is one of those books that you don't think twice about its accuracy and correctness. I found the book enjoyable although my wife (a non-developer) started getting sick of me telling her all the details of Whidbey. It's one of those topics and books that you just need to tell someone about and my wife happened to be the unfortunate recipient of my excitement.

I would highly recommend A First Look to existing ASP.NET Developers. The topic is exciting and the authors did a great job of covering the bases in an enjoyable and easy to follow format. Now it's just a matter of waiting until Whidbey is fully released so that development with Whidbey can be shown to the world.

The scientist Louis Pasteur is famous for, amongst other things, saying, "chance favors the prepared mind." With Whidbey on the horizon, Dave Sussman, Alex Homer and Rob Howard, are getting you prepared for battle, as you combat long, drawn-out development sessions and having to write thousands of lines of code. You'll definitely want to pick up a copy of this book to properly arm yourself.

Whether you're an existing alpha tester or one of the many who is privy to a PDC copy of Whidbey, this is the definitive source you'll want in your arsenal for the next evolution of ASP.NET. There's code galore, and the concepts are explained easily and well, while still mixing in the specifics of how the next version of .NET will help you become a better web developer.

The book's hearty 470+ pages display a tone that is friendly and comforting, which is a plus when taking into consideration the literal piano of information about new features and enhancements that will be dropping on you. It seems to be best read by an experienced ASP.NET developer, familiar with concepts and terms inherent to Microsoft web development. One will quickly welcome the perspectives given on a variety of topics from caching to the new server controls, to the enhancements Version 2.0 of the .NET Framework delivers.

The book does not completely marry the reader to the Whidbey version of Visual Studio .NET, rather presenting the code examples in an IDE-agnostic manner, so as to still appeal to the NotePad enthusiast in all of us. Still, the vast and massive improvements to VS.NET itself are well documented.

All the book's examples are presented in Visual Basic .NET, which isn't so bad, as one of the key points of the title is that Whidbey's new model minimizes the authoring of code itself, so you can concentrate more on working with encapsulated server controls and optimizing your web apps through intelligent configuration and management utilities.

A very healthy chapter on Web Parts and Whidbey's model for the portal framework is most appreciated, and the ease by which you'll sift through the accompanying code just goes to prove how much better developing web-based applications will be once Whidbey arrives. Equally-thick chapters on new aspects of the feature set such as master pages, membership, and personalization, as well as great discussions of the improvements to the existing security, data controls, configuration and administration.

The book also does a great job of keeping multi-platform application development in mind, constantly mentioning the capabilities of Whidbey to generate output for both the desktop-based and mobile browser.

My personal favorite new feature of ASP.NET 2.0 is Web Parts and Personalization, and the book has a great deal of information on both. The book proves that not only has Microsoft listened to customers and thought way ahead in developing the next big thing, but the title's authors themselves answer many questions you'd likely ask.

If you're wondering if this book (and Whidbey in general) is worth it - believe the hype. Get this book now. You'll be very happy you did, and will be anxiously anticipating the release of Beta 1.