Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Databases Beta Preview (Paperback)

~ (Author), Thiru Thangarathinam (Contributor) "Considering the speed and power that ASP.NET 2.0 and the .NET Framework 2.0 bring to the beginning programmer, it is a joy to write this..." (more)
Key Phrases: smart task panel, data source control, templated control, Try It Out, Grid View, Visual Studio (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

With help from Microsoft ASP.NET insider Bradley Millington, this book will be the first book available on ASP.NET Databases when the first beta is put into wide distribution in 2004.

The book covers both VB.NET and C# coding for ASP.NET databases so readers don't have to decide up front which language they want more and retailers no longer have to manage inventory on separate language versions.

By returning to a single lead author (John Kauffman) with technical input and guidance from one other technical expert (Bradley Millington), the book regains cohesiveness and a single voice and vision.

This edition is completely written from scratch on ASP.NET "Whidbey" to insure the coverage is most appropriate for this greatly changed version.

The book focuses on solving business problems in a logical progression from connecting to displaying to changing the data. Additional chapters cover enhancements to the presentation and alternate types of data. The book follows Kauffman’s practice of going beyond the basic techniques to discuss the permutations, pitfalls and best practices that occur in real business scenarios.

From the Back Cover

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Databases Beta Preview

ASP.NET 2.0 will bring sweeping changes to the ASP database landscape. This introduction to adding data to your Web site with the public beta prepares you for the changes. You can take a first-hand look at the promised developer productivity improvements and decide whether or not they'll benefit your applications.

You will move in a logical progression from connecting to displaying to changing data, including alternate data types, presentation enhancements, and more. The authors guide you around the pitfalls, explain the peculiarities, and provide you with best practices using real-world business situations. Packed with examples and explanations, plus Q&A review at the end of each chapter, this book focuses entirely on the new techniques in ASP.NET version 2.0 and will have you ahead of the curve for the new version final release.

What you will learn from this book

• Fundamentals of connecting your Web pages to databases
• Complete scenarios with SQL Server, Oracle®, MySQL®, Access, and XML
• Tricks and traps to displaying data in grids, lists, and trees
• How to allow users to change, add, and delete data
• Techniques for creating data objects and events and handling data errors

Who this book is for

This book is for database developers seeking a Web front end or Web programmers who want to add data to a site. You must have a basic knowledge of HTML and database design. Some experience with the ASP.NET 2.0 beta is helpful.

"Simple, straightforward tutorials and a conversational style make this book approachable to the novice developer, while also demonstrating several real-world scenarios and tips that will be appreciated by those already familiar with the basics."
—Bradley Millington, Program Manager, Web Platform and Tools Team, Microsoft Corporation

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Product Details

• Paperback: 427 pages
• Publisher: Wrox (March 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764570811
• ISBN-13: 978-0764570810
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,271,387 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First book on ASP.NET 2.0 beta 2, March 19, 2005

By	J. Minatel "jimmin" (Fishers, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are several other previous ASP.NET 2.0 books available but they are all out of date as there are some major changes from beta 1 to beta 2. Beta 2 (which there's a good preview available of as of March in the form of a new "community technical preview" on MSDN) should be close to the final feature set developers will see when ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 finally releases. So, beta 2 is now a good point for developers to get familiar with ASP.NET 2.0 in preparation for final release.
Given that the point of ASP.NET 2.0 is to build data-driven sites, Kauffman's database-centric book is a good way to look at it.
The most important change in beta 2 is ASP.NET 2.0's new ties to the "SQL Server 2005 Express Edition" product. This is detailed well in one of the early chapters here.
After that the author covers all the routine ASP.NET data techniques you'll need to know including:
Displaying data
Paging and sorting data
Filtering data
Updating, deleting, inserting data
Working with XML

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference book, January 7, 2006

By	Anand Narayanaswamy "Webhostinghotel.com" (Trivandrum, Kerala, India) - See all my reviews

Even though version 2.0 of the .NET Framework is still in the Beta stage, many publishers have released books concerning the ASP.NET 2.0 Beta. One such book is Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Databases Beta Preview, from Wrox. This book covers the ADO.NET part of the .NET Framework 2.0 Beta. It examines almost all the concepts in a comprehensive manner with step-by-step explanations together with supporting code samples. The author begins with a basic introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 and ADO.NET. This will surely help novice developers as they can learn right from the evolution of the .NET Framework. This chapter also examines the different editors available for programming with ASP.NET, such as Visual Studio 2005 and Notepad.

Chapters 2 and 3 examine the connection aspects of database access. While chapter 2 covers Microsoft Access, chapter 3 touches on SQL Server and SQL Server Express. The author also provides coverage about connecting to other popular relational databases such as Oracle and MySQL. Chapter 5 shows the different ways by which you can display data using ASP.NET 2.0. These include the GridView and DetailsView controls. The next chapter examines in detail the usage of Cascading Style Sheets with ASP.NET 2.0 controls. Chapter 7 examines the paging and sorting aspects of controls such as the GridView. The next chapter provides a clear explanation of displaying data in list controls.

Chapter 9 shows you how to filter data from the database using different methods such as using a QueryString parameter or a TextBox value. This chapter also demonstrates how to display data using a GridView and DetailsView on the same page and on different pages. Chapter 10 examines the different ways of displaying data in templated controls with the help of source codes. Chapters 11 and 12 cover updating, deleting, and inserting data in a detailed manner. The author covers, among other things, the handling of NULLs in updates.

Chapter 12 examines the inserting of data using DetailsView and FormView controls. The author provides a detailed explanation about n-tier applications and the creation of a data access logic layer using the Visual Studio DataSet Designer. Do you have knowledge of XML? If so, you should refer to chapter 14 as it provides detailed coverage about the usage of XML with ASP.NET 2.0. The final two chapters cover data caching and handling of events. Many readers will keenly read the chapter about caching as this technique has been used by many developers to improve the performance of ASP.NET applications.

An important point to note regarding this book is that each chapter includes exercises titled Try It Out. These exercises will help readers to learn while they read the book. Moreover, all aspects are covered in a step-by-step manner.

This book includes an excellent appendix which gives a short and crisp introduction to SQL statements. Each chapter includes exercise questions, and the final appendix provides answers for the same. I feel that the author should provide multiple-choice questions as exercises rather than conventional style questions. This will help those who are preparing for the upcoming .NET 2.0 certification examinations. I also found some coding errors in the book. I hope the author will fix them before releasing the next edition of the book.

I feel that even beginners with no experience of ASP.NET can easily learn the concepts covered in this book, as it is written in easy-to-understand language. This book should find a place on the shelves of upcoming ASP.NET developers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book wasted my time and totally frustrated me!, November 11, 2005

By	Leslie Earl Prigmore "Les P" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have never taken the time to write a review before, but I can't ignore this one! I can't understand how this book got so many 5 star reviews! I can't believe that these reviewers were even familiar with the content of the book and its poor examples! I can only surmise that they might have an agenda of trying to increase sales by misrepresenting the product. I started the book at the beginning and suffered until about page 110. By then I was so frustrated that I couldn't continue. Approximately 20 pages out of 400 cursorily address middle tier business objects which are really the meat of database access. Usually the examples are very simple and will work. But they are so simple that they teach very little. The examples are repetitive in that they direct the reader to recreate a web form that is a minor alteration of the previous example. The learning would go much faster with a lot less text if the reader were simply directed to add the feature to the previously created web form. If the example has any complexity, it probably doesn't work, there are comments in the code that the author apologetically says that he will explain later in the book but without a clue as to where. It is far too much work to publish a book! I am sure that the author put a lot of work into it! His efforts were wasted! It appears that the book was rushed to press without planning the order of topics presented or proof reading. I don't know if this book is a reflection on other WROX books but I will be cautious about procuring another. Sorry guys, this is not meant to flame any entity but to create an awareness or consciousness of accountability for product quality. With some additional effort this could have been a much better book! On a much more positive note, I have now moved on to "ASP.NET 2.0 - A Developer's Notebook" by We-Meng Lee and feel much more productive. I can recommend it!