Beginning Components for ASP [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Richard Anderson (Author), Simon Robinson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Beginning Components for ASP is an intermediate title in the Wrox line of Active Server Pages guides. This volume is intended for developers comfortable with ASP who are interested in leveraging the power of component-based applications. The two key development languages for components--Visual Basic and C++--are addressed in this work.

Visual Basic component development is handled first with an excellent introduction to components and class development in VB. The authors then explain the interconnection of ADO, UDA, and COM in a chapter that lays the foundation for a solid understanding of how components work. From there the authors discuss big picture application design issues such as n-tier architecture. The text utilizes concise code examples and frequent headings that make the book very useful for quick reference as you hone your component skills.

Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and resource management are addressed, and the authors show what you must do to make your components work with MTS. The first of two sophisticated case studies in the book--a document management system--illustrates how to work with XML with components. This example is lengthy but very informative since the authors take the time to explain each section. A second similar case study presents a fictitious movie theater application. These real-world examples, coupled with the structured tutorial content, make this guide a perfect way to get on the component bandwagon. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Components and hosting environments, VB and C++ component development, UDA, ADO, COM, MTS, scalability, resource management, directory access with ADSI, C++ components with the Active Template Library, threading, and OLE DB access with ATL.

Product Description
ASP components are the next stage for the maturing ASP programmer. They reflect a need for bespoke and fine control over site activity. For example, when a basic ASP site wishes to have some sort of transactional ability, where a database will ultimately be referred to or some business rule checked against, then a custom component will do the job. This component could be written in VB,VC or Java and is hermetic and maintainable.

This book is about the broad flavors of common components, how they should fit an architecture and how to write them correctly.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 831 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Press; 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861002882
• ISBN-13: 978-1861002884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,663,912 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the defacto book on ASP components is redefined!, October 7, 1999

By A Customer

I'm really pleased to have found a book that gives so many practical examples of creating ASP components in VB. This books covers all the the technologies like XML and MTS that ASP developers should know about, and it does it well.

I've read other ASP component books from other publishers (such as Developing ASP component by Shelley Powers) but none have given so many examples, or been as technically deep and clear. With this book I've got a good handle on how to write my ASP components, which I just haven't got from other books.

Great book, thanks guys.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Bit Painful..., April 4, 2000

By A Customer

I just completed the book through to Chapter 15 where the case studies start up for the final three chapters. I had a tough time with this book. It seems to follow the mode of other Wrox books of being technically sound, but the spelling and grammar mistakes along with occasional errors in the examples make it a tough read. I learned a lot about creating ASP callable components in Visual C++ and VB. The use and coverage of the intrinsic ASP objects was very useful as were the DB examples using ADO and the OLEDB helper classes. Tough parts include the treatment of MTS and transactions. These parts were too much of an overview and seemingly incomplete. A discussion of why MTS is better than handling transactions than closer to the RDBMS itself would have been helpful (such as with ADO or SQL to the DB). I found the MSMQ and ADSI chapters to be too much of a gloss over to be helpful. Wrox has dedicated books for these two topics. All in all, the book isn't bad for some of the valuable information I got out of it, but it could have been better.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars As usual wrox know their stuff, March 24, 2000

By	YB (USA) - See all my reviews

I found this book helpfull, day to day. I especially like the part about ATL. The reason that i gave just 4 stars is that i was hoping to get some more info of the OLE DB Templates and how to use them in NTier environment. If you familier with VB and you want to do some COM, and you see your self down the road moving on to ATL, this is the book for you. Also if you have done some C++, and COM freaks you out, give this book a shot.