Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET [Paperback]

Lynn Torkelson (Author), Constance Petersen (Author), Zac Torkelson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Expert's Voice | Publication Date: July 16, 2002

Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET is a comprehensive guide to building web applications and services using Visual Basic .NET. It is written especially for experienced Visual Basic programmers who use Visual Studio .NET for their development work, even those who have never written a web application before.

Because the .NET Framework simply blows away the archaic tools previously available to web programmers, the authors predict that many Visual Basic programmers who successfully avoided Web programming in the past will now bring their expertise to the Web. However, even experienced web programmers will greatly benefit from the authors' thorough coverage of the ASP.NET namespaces and their clear coverage of the ADO.NET classes most important to Web applications that use relational databases for data storage. All developers will benefit from the authors' extensive practical advice (based on their unique professional backgrounds) about how to produce create high-quality code and how to create professional, usable websites.

After reading Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET, you'll understand how to build and deploy top-quality, professionally designed, highly usable web applications using Visual Basic .NET.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Constance Petersen coauthored the bestselling Visual Basic 4 How-To and has been recognized with the Microsoft "Most Valuable Professional" award for her contributions to the VB development community. The creative force within SoftMedia Artisans, she has written extensively on web design and usability.

Lynn Torkelson, a grizzled veteran of assembly language and C programming, has extensive experience using Visual Basic to develop client/server business applications. Lynn also did tours of duty as a software development manager and as a manager of software quality.

Product Details

• Paperback: 910 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590590279
• ISBN-13: 978-1590590270
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,321,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Working knowledge of ASP.NET, VB.NET (Web) and ADO.NET., August 1, 2003

By 

Harinath Thummalapalli (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)

This book is aimed at teaching someone who is ALREADY exposed to VB.NET how to create database driven Websites using VB.NET, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET. It takes a database neutral approach and you could use almost any database in using this book. If you are new to VB.NET but have a good understanding of another programming language, you will still be able to follow this book.

The book does not skip any steps in explaining how to use these three technologies on a Web project. It is very detailed in its explanations and has a lot of sample code that works! You have to download this sample code from their website (which is a good thing as you will have code that has been thoroughly debugged). Any problems I had using the code in this book had to do with Visual Studio.NET 2003 related problems. But once I fixed those issues, I had no trouble using the sample code. A lot of examples can be used immediately in almost any Web project you may be currently working on.

In the initial stages of learning these technologies, I was lucky enough to find this book and spent a lot of time reading THIS book only and to date, I have covered more than 70% of the book. I couldn't skip any sections as they are so well written and well connected (the various topics). This type of thorough treatment of a subject in the IT world is rare and it got me thinking if it is to do with the authors or the publisher. I have already decided to check out more books by the publisher first.

The thing I like the most about this book is the excellent explanations they give on how ASP.NET, VB.NET, and ADO.NET really work. They are very detailed and the explanations make sense! That combined with the practical nature of this book (tons of code) make it a very valuable find. By the time you are done with this book, you should have no trouble creating a database driven website. You still need 'ASP.NET Developer's Cookbook' by The ASP Alliance to create a complex website. But this book will give you the confidence you need to consider yourself a decent web developer in using .NET technologies. You can then go to the next level.

If you are frustrated trying to find a good book on using VB.NET to design websites, you won't be disappointed with this book. I found only a few books on .NET that I really like and this book made the Top 3 of that list. Enjoy using this book to master ASP.NET, VB.NET, and ADO.NET for the Web!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn ASP.NET the Right Way with Code Behind & Visual Studio, February 4, 2003

By 

Bill Roberts (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)

I can't believe the recent two less-than-stellar reviews of this book, because I found this book to be absolutely top-notch.

I moved from VB6 to VB.NET (Windows programming) not too long ago, but I had never done any Web programming. Someone had recommended ASP.NET Unleashed. It has lots of little code examples, but they're chock full of response.write's (yuck!). It also assumes you'll be using notepad as your code editor (double-yuck!).

In contrast, Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET is a complete tutorial that explains how to develop Web applications and services the right way. It uses Code Behind exclusively, gives great tips for designing usable Web pages, and takes you through the Visual Studio way of developing ASP.NET applications.

The sample code is useful and interesting. I especially appreciated the chapter that shows how to use the .NET trace features to understand exactly how the Web page processing sequence and control tree works. I also loved the examples on using resource files to localize pages for international users and on developing a "breadcrumb" custom control (and why you need breadcrumb links).

The database chapter on ADO.NET was exactly what I needed to understand the Visual Studio tools for handling the disconnected datasets used in scalable Web applications. The examples tied together well and were fun too. What with Lizzy the milk cow running off with the bull next door, Daisy and MooMoo joining them, Bossy getting depressed... Along with learning to do database deletes and updates, I was treated to a regular dairy farm soap opera. :-)

Each chapter added greatly to my knowledge, and the final chapter cemented it with a surprisingly thorough start-to-finish Web site development project. I say "surprisingly" because most books' single-chapter, "start to finish" projects don't cover nearly as much ground as this one did.

Although this book seems to be written mainly for experienced VB programmers, I would also highly recommend it for experienced ASP programmers who want to learn ASP.NET (as long as they learn some VB.NET first -- this book doesn't try to teach that too -- it expects that you'll start with a basic understanding of VB.NET). The reason I recommend it for ASP programmers is that this book will teach them the Code Behind way of coding, rather than perpetrating the response.write way they had to code in previous versions of ASP.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in show - VB exploits the Web, August 22, 2002

By 

David C Birmingham (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)

Our developers are always hungry for ways to exploit web technology and keep our technical momentum on full afterburner.
I was very happy to see a book like this that helps us focus the power of multiple technologies and integrate them right away.

We were able to use this book's references immediately to gain traction with a potential customer. The special effects were eye-popping. The examples are practical and give enough peripheral references to help readers dive deeper on their own.

Developers using VB will find this a valuable resource to extend their technical scope into internet-based technologies. It's well-written and organized, and most any subject area you care to focus on is easy to find and dive into. This is the first book of its kind - melding VB and the Web - that can be used by the widest number of technologists.

The most difficult part about assimilating .NET into the mainstream has been a lack of documentation and clear examples of where things intersect and how they best interact. This book clarifies much of that - so rather than slog through the rough spots, get a copy of this one and keep it handy.