Professional ASP.NET [Paperback]

Dave Sussman (Author), Alex Homer (Author), Rob Howard (Author), Karli Watson (Author), Brian Francis (Author), Richard Anderson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written for any Web developer making the move to the latest Microsoft .NET Web development technologies, Professional ASP.NET provides both a tutorial to APIs and a real guide to the best practices for this new platform. Ideal for those with a little previous ASP experience, this book strikes just the right balance between theory and practice to show what works with the new .NET.

Although this is quite a big volume (over 1,300 pages), it is never a dense one. Written by a team of authors, it still manages to keep a fairly consistent tone and approach to programming with the new ASP.NET. The book first covers what's new and improved in .NET and why ASP.NET offers a better way to develop Web applications.

Throughout this text, short code excerpts are used to illustrate key programming principles, from the basics of building dynamic Web pages using "code behind" functions and (eventually) business objects. There's excellent coverage on the many choices for server-side components from HTML Controls to Web Forms, to wireless support and even building your own custom server components. (Most of the coding examples rely on the new Visual Basic.NET, but there is also help on using C# and JScript.NET.) Besides APIs and sample code, the authors give numerous concrete tips. For instance, for programming ADO.NET databases and XML, they cover a wide range of choices and provide recommendations for selecting the right objects for better performance.

The book also covers the emerging world of Web services on .NET in good detail with a high-level view of what Web services are, plus practical examples of how to implement them. Importantly, you'll learn how to build business objects, a must for scalable Web applications. (These techniques come together at the end with a case study for an online store that sells outdoor gear.) There's also coverage of basic .NET classes for common programming tasks, like working with strings, collections, and files.

Though .NET is still under construction, Professional ASP.NET offers a real benefit in showing readers the right ways to use new features and APIs. Besides presenting a really understandable tutorial to the basics of ASP.NET, their expert-level insight into what works best on the new platform should pay off with faster and more scalable Web applications on .NET. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Introduction to ASP.NET and the Microsoft .NET platform
• ASP and ASP.NET compared (including benefits and design goals of ASP.NET)
• .NET vs. the Windows Distributed interNet Architecture (DNA)
• The Common Language Runtime (CLR) explained
• Basic introduction to ASP.NET development languages (Visual Basic.NET, C#, JScript.NET, and C++ compared)
• Performance issues
• Declaring variables, functions, and procedures
• The ASP.NET Page class
• Using "code behind" scripts and page caching
• Custom controls
• Tutorial for the ASP.NET HTML Server controls
• Using input validation controls
• Tutorial for the ASP.NET Web Form controls
• Data binding controls explained
• Using styles and templates
• Editing data with bound controls
• ADO.NET database APIs and programming techniques (using the DataReader and DataSet objects)
• ADO.NET and XML support
• XML basics (including the XML DOM and navigating, writing, and reading XML)
• Relational database programming techniques (complex and nested data, calling stored procedures)
• The DataTable object
• Sorting and filtering data
• Updating data (the Command object, transactions, DataSet, and managing concurrency)
• XML data techniques in .NET (XML and DataSet objects, XML, and SQL Server)
• Validating, creating, and editing XML documents
• Quick tutorial on XSL and XSLT
• Administering Web applications (including global.asax, state management, and application events)
• Configuring ASP.NET (including common configuration settings, plus tracing, custom errors, authentication, and authorization)
• In-depth tutorial on security
• Tutorial for working with basic .NET classes (including collections, lists, directories, and files)
• Creating custom .NET business objects (including cross-language inheritance)
• Building custom ASP.NET Server controls (plus composite controls)
• Introduction to Web services (creating and using a simple Web service, SOAP and XML standards, and .NET Web service class support)
• Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) and the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) described
• Web service security issues
• ASP.NET support for wireless with mobile controls
• Debugging, tracing, and error-handling techniques
• Migration and interoperability issues for older code and COM used with ASP.NET
• Case study for a sample online e-commerce store using .NET business objects
• Quick reference to the .NET common system namespaces
• Performance hints for ASP.NET

Product Details

• Paperback: 1400 pages
• Publisher: Apress (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861004885
• ISBN-13: 978-1861004888
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,694,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome back Wrox, July 11, 2001

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional ASP.NET (Paperback)

Over the past few months, Wrox has been rushing to be the first one on the market with tomes on some form of new technology. This rush has produced ill conceived, half-baked books like VB.NET Programming with the Public Beta, A Preview of ASP+ and Introducing .NET. Each of the was the best of class when released, but only because they were the only one that showed up on the first day.

This speed has also produced typo-full and error ridden books (for examples of misconceptions spread, see the VB.NET Preview). Many of the yearbook books (ie, tons of authors) from Wrox have also been plagued with repeats, as one author writes the same thing down in slightly different words.

I do not fault the authors for this, as I know what a hectic schedule writing can be. I also cannot fault the publisher, as long as people will buy the book.

Fortunately, Professional ASP.NET is a return to Wrox's glory days. Are there some typos? Certainly, but nothing really major. Are there any repeats? A couple, but very few. Overall, the content is well divided and the authors seem a lot better versed at the technology than they did with the earlier .NET works.

One thing that is very refreshing is examples in security, configuration, etc. Having had to eck most of this out myself, it is nice to see it from another point of view. It has given me a chance to test my own code against another way, in some cases, and to confirm my coding decisions in others.

It is also nice to see a chapter on mobile .NET applications. As these will become more important in the future, and no other book has any yet, this is a good thing. Kudos.

As with most Wrox books, there are plenty of code samples. This will help you with your own apps. Unfortunately, as of today (July 11), the code samples are not on the Wrox site. But, I expect them soon. The books tend to be a bit ahead of the code.

I hope this means that Wrox is returning to writing quality books instead of just being first. I have so many red books my bookshelf appears to be bleeding. I was wondering if the red was running out. If this book is any indication, the worm has turned.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great offering from WROX on ASP.NET!, July 3, 2001

By 

Kuntal Choksi (Plantation, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Professional ASP.NET (Paperback)

This one is a great offering from WROX on ASP.NET!

It covers different ASP.net flavours,Garbage collection, web services, caching, datasets, windows services, threading (and thread pooling) and much more...

The book also covers the .NET Common Language Runtime (or CLR for short) which provides a level of encapsulation between the developer and the operating system, thereby making writing Windows programs simpler.So the developer will no longer have to worry about low-level details such as memory management, pointer management, language differences, and other common annoyances.

If you are an EXPERIENCED ASP Developer,currently developing with ASP 3.0, and are considering the implications of the .NET Framework, then this book is FOR YOU .It is aimed at experienced ASP developers who are working at the leading edge, rather than the casual ASP developer or beginner.You will also need Windows 2000 environment to test and run ASP.Net

32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not Beta 2 -- Disappionting., July 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional ASP.NET (Paperback)

As is, most examples do not work without major tweaking -- even the most simplest of examples. Many samples do not work in Beta 2 as .NET Beta 2 does not even recognize the syntax, let alone compile. Anyone who buys and reads through this book will immediately see this. Even the simple action of building a web method has changed from Beta 1 to Beta 2 and you will get an error when trying to compile.

For coders out there, in the standard WROX method, you are fed the samples in the book one line at a time without having the beginning and ending sections (i.e., not the entire code)...making it impossible to type the code manually and being able run it. WROX does offer the samples as download, but once again, the samples do not work.

I personally would wait until more ASP.NET books come out on the market. Many are scheduled soon. That way, you can be sure of examples that work. Very disappointed for such an expensive book.