Customer Reviews

Learning ASP.Net 2.0 with Ajax: A Practical Hands-on Guide

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I am impressed at how well-paced and explanatory this book is. Usually the big problems I see in coding books have very little to do with the quality of the code and very much to do with care (or its lack) in pacing and organization. The result here is a book that thinks through and accounts for the questions beginners will have.

The authors direct themselves to developers asking the question "What is the quickest way for me to build real Web applications with the least handcoding?" They stick to that so closely, anyone worrying about the VB versus C# thing should not feel any hesitation on that account in getting this book.

The examples use Visual Studio or its free counterpart, Visual Web Developer. An appendix guides you through their installation and configuration, as well as that of SQL Express.

The book has a nice addition for the serious student: each chapter has a quiz and exercises -- with the answers provided in the back of the book.
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'Learning ASP.NET 2.0 with AJAX: A Practical Hands-on Guide' is another gem of a book by heavy technology author Jesse Liberty et al.. If you know about recent web advances over the last couple of years you know about AJAX which has revolutionized the Web 2.0 world, allowing for real apps to be made on the web. The user doesn't have to wait wait wait any more, as they can make decision/choices and get the feedback that they are expecting right away. AJAX technology basically splits pages up into "virtual divs" where instead of displayed content being control, handshakes and communication behind the scenes is what is modified. Early AJAX code was a bit flaky but Microsoft has made things easier with their ASP.NET AJAX set of controls and classes. In order to learn how to use these tools the user needed a book that laid things out in a logical fashion and did so in a tight, useful package, this book is the result!!

This ~500 page book is broken up in the following way:

01. Intro
02. Web Apps
03. AJAX Web Apps
04. Saving/Getting Data
05. Validation
06. Style sheets, Master Pages, Navigation
07. State & Life Cycle
08. Errors, Exceptions, Bugs
09. Security & Personalization
10. Epilogue

If you have a read a Jesse Liberty book in the past you know that you are getting a top notch quality product. He's so good at writing tech friendly books it's like sitting down with him. Examples are spaced out well and content is described in a VERY user-friendly manner.

If you develop with ASP.NET and want to implement AJAX on your site, PICK UP THIS BOOK. The only disclaimer is the code is written in VB but if you are a savvy programmer it shouldn't be very difficult to make the switch to C# if that is your flavor of the month.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I admit that just knowing Jesse Liberty wrote a particular book makes me want to read it. I just bought it, even though it addresses an older version of the .Net framework, because I knew I'd learn something. I am trying to add Ajax to my applications, and the books out there are a real mixed bag. I figured Mr. Liberty wouldn't let me down, and I was mostly right.
I usually read technical books by putting the Kindle for PC screen up on one monitor and working along with the book on the other. This book is so well-written and easy to read that I carried it around with me and read it like a novel. Some of it was old hat to me, since I am an experienced ASP.Net programmer, but I still learned a thing or two that will help me out a lot. Jesse Liberty has a way of explaining things that demystifies them, and the examples in the book build on one another clearly and effectively. By the end of it, you have a working site that implements a lot of useful ASP.Net stuff. My biggest complaint is that there wasn't more Ajax in it. That was a bit misleading. Mostly it is good old server-side ASP.Net programming. I would like to see this author produce a work specifically aimed at ASP.Net developers who want to add jQuery and Ajax to their sites. That's a book I'd buy for the Kindle AND on paper.

Easy to follow and understand. Tells you how to donwload free software and walks you through programming examples.