Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET [Paperback]

Donny Mack (Author), Doug Seven (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672321068 | ISBN-13: 978-0672321061 | Publication Date: September 30, 2001 | Edition: 1

Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET provides readers with a solid understanding of ASP.NET and how to effectively integrate databases with their Web sites. The key to making information instantly available on the Web is integrating the Web site and the database to work as one piece. The authors teach this using ASP.NET, server-side controls, ADO+, XML, and SOAP. The authors will teach readers how to manage data by using ASP.NET forms, exposing data through ASP+ Web Services, working with BLOBs, and using cookies and other features to secure their data.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A revolution in developing software is coming and it's called the .NET Framework. This broad Microsoft strategy opens doors to exciting new concepts such as Web services, which deliver the software you create as services that dish out data via XML over the Net. ASP.NET and ADO.NET are key elements to this new approach, improving the efficiency of Web page coding and database access respectively. Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET provides an excellent introduction to this brave new world of database-driven Web development for seasoned and novice programmers alike.

The book dives into ASP.NET with a breakdown of its new features such as server side controls and event handling, Web services and session state management. It then clearly points out the advantages of ADO.NET--interoperability, a strong-typed programming model, higher disconnected performance, and better scalability. Readers will learn about managed providers and get a tutorial on ANSI SQL and the nitty gritty of database access. Plenty of example code is presented in both Visual Basic.NET and C#.

The book explains how XML and SOAP--the protocol for exchanging XML data--work together as the transmission mechanism behind the scenes of .NET applications. The centerpiece of this new architecture is the Web services feature, and this text covers this powerful Web-callable interface well. ASP.NET and ADO.NET require somewhat of a new programming mindset from previous coding platforms, but this easy-to-read tutorial provides an easy entry point. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: .NET overview, ADO.NET managed providers, data binding, DataGrid control, templates, Web form server controls, validation controls, editing and filtering data, XML and SOAP, BLOB uploading and displaying, Web services, authentication, data caching, ASP.NET reference, and ADO.NET reference.

From the Back Cover

Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET provides readers with a solid understanding of ASP.NET and how to effectively integrate databases with their Web sites. The key to making information instantly available on the Web is integrating the Web site and the database to work as one piece. The authors teach this using ASP.NET, server-side controls, ADO+, XML, and SOAP. The authors will teach readers how to manage data by using ASP.NET forms, exposing data through ASP+ Web Services, working with BLOBs, and using cookies and other features to secure their data.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (September 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672321068
• ISBN-13: 978-0672321061
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,844,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE book to buy after learning basic .NET programming, December 7, 2001

By 

Jason A. Salas (Dededo, Guam Guam) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET (Paperback)

Doug and Donny are the most plainclothes writers out there on the market today???and I mean this with the most sincere of praise. Each possesses an uncanny knack for explaining the most complex of technical topics in an easy-to-follow manner, appealing to the newbie or otherwise non-expert reader. And they consistently manage to do this while not alienating the advanced developer audience at the same time. Throughout this book, their genius is on display.

I???m President of an ASP.NET User Group, and this title is on my ???Must Have??? list for books to get.

This should be THE book you buy after going through an initial title for an introduction into .NET programming, as it will pay for itself many times over in your usage. I???ve heard people discount the book???s concept because they unfairly felt it was just literary regurgitation of every other .NET title???s chapter(s) on using ADO.NET to perform data access, stretched out into an entire book. Nothing could be further from the truth. The book offers so much more into getting past simple code constructs and really optimizing the management of your data. Through this concept, the reader gains a greater understanding of the .NET Framework.

Doug and Donny???s use of product knowledge, humor, and real-world applicability is equally enticing, educational, and entertaining. While the book is by its nature top-heavy in ASP.NET data access concepts, it also tackles some of other common concerns, like working with BLOBs, XML, data caching, authentication, and validation. Such is not commonly found in many traditional data access texts, and is a very welcome value-added change.

Through a combination of timely documentation, ample exhibits, and well laid out chapters, the reader will learn the obvious data access principles, but also so much more (such as indirectly absorbing a more refined, disciplined way to write .NET code), just from the fact that the book is extremely well written. More than 7 months in the making, the various examples are current to be 100% compatible with Beta 2 of the .NET Framework, so barring any major dramatic syntactical changes in the final release of .NET (which at this point is highly unlikely), the book will be relevant for some time, not to be run obsolete in 6 months.

The book is a wealth of great information, presented beautifully, but also succinctly and without 35 pages of traditional computer science theory and historical data behind coding concepts. They get to the point, state their case, and move on to the next thing. It???s a very effective read.

WHAT I DO LIKE IN PARTICULAR:
?? All code examples are written in both Visual Basic.NET and C#. This is a critical element to this book???s success.
?? There is a LOT of code with many different examples.
?? Although catering to a much wider range of .NET topics, the associated Web site (...) is an excellent companion to the book.
?? Doug and Donny don???t forget to make the pages sing with style. Many ASP.NET books will include enough code to get you going with the functional aspects of designing Web Forms, but the authors??? examples work great???and look great. Simple aesthetic alterations to the resultant pages are a nice addition to those of us who cringe when we see Times New Roman on anything online. They fortunately didn???t neglect the fact that pages should look good, too, which is attractive to traditional Web designers!
?? A wealth of associated namespaces, methods, properties, and attributes are listed in a very healthy appendix section; this is contrary to most .NET books tendency to just list the methods that they felt were important, as per their examples. The back section of the book makes for a great reference companion.
?? Newer programmers to the .NET Framework will come to appreciate (whether they realize it or not) the coding discipline indirectly enforced throughout the book, like prefixing variables, using TRY???CATCH???FINALLY constructs, and properly indented code.
?? The fact that this is a high-end data access book doesn???t rule out the little guy. An equal amount of much attention is given to Access, Oracle and all other OLEDB application users as is to those of SQL Server. Thus, the book is naturally relevant to a broader audience.
?? Even thought the authors cleanly state their own preferences when performing certain operations, they make reference to and show examples of the different ways something can be coded.
?? The XML Web service absolutely rocks. In nearly all .NET books ??? especially those that came out in the early months of Beta 2???s mass distribution, Web services were arguably the key chapter wrapping up all previous discussions about .NET programming???but then contained simple, weak, basic math-type of ???software as a service??? applications. Not here. ???The Big Cheese??? is ultra cool.
?? The examples are very fun to work with, and very practical. I rarely stop while reading a book to try out a coding example, opting to do it later???but I found myself ceasing my reading to write simple data access pages and Web forms because it was so cool. (Case in point: the custom paging solution)

WHAT I HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT:
?? It???s immediately apparent from even reading a few chapters that Doug and Donny each have their own writing style, which is great. Unfortunately, this translates to writing code, as well. One???s style is very structured, disciplined, and organized, with all VB.NET syntax properly indented, capitalized (even though not necessary); while the other tends to be a bit more relaxed in his syntactical style. Having a uniform way of presenting the examples would be more reinforcing for the learning, I think.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Code Samples, September 28, 2001

By 

Pete Mathews (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET (Paperback)

First off, I have to say, this book is great! I am a devloper with a VB and ASP backgroud, and this is the first book I have bought on ASP.NET. I was very surprised to find that all of the code samples in the book are given in both C# and Visual Basic.Net. As a VB person interested in learning C#, seeing the code samples in both made it very easy for me to learn ASP.NET with databases and C# at the same time.

The authors did a great job introducing each topic, and then jumping right into a code demonstration. This made it very easy for me to pick up the concepts quickly. This is 700+ pages of technical material on ASP.NET, ADO.NET, DataGrids, Authentication, Web Serviece, etc., that read very quickly...and it was fun! I'd definitely buy any book by these authors.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to most major data access techniques, October 31, 2001

By 

Curtis D. Swartzentruber "skills0" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Programming Data-Driven Web Applications with ASP.NET (Paperback)

This book covers most of the basic techniques an ASP.NET data access application would utilize. There are a few more advanced techniques, but if you are at that level this book may be a bit simple for you. I especially like the way the authors take a basic example and keep expanding on it with new techniques. This learning pattern mirrors the way a lot of developers learn.

I wish I would have had access to a book like this in the spring of 2001 as I had to learn a lot of this stuff by trial and error. If you are just getting started, this book will save you a lot of time in getting up to speed. Plus it is nice that all examples are given in both VB.NET and C#, especially at this stage in the adoption of the .NET platform where developers are still trying to determine which language to learn.