Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# (Microsoft .NET Development Series) (Paperback)

This is definitely not the case with this new book, as it's a very refreshing overview of ASP.NET for those who have been working with it.

It's been my experience that with most titles taking an omnibus approach, a book will have one or two chapters that really shine, explaining some aspect of ASP.NET development better than most books. This book has several such gems. It features one of the better descriptions of proper surgery of machine.config/web.config that you'll find on the market today. Specifically, each element with an application's configuration file is examined, instead of the lackadaisical "here's a look at the more important ones" approach that so many authors sadly resort to.

It also sports a better description than most books about the ASP.NET worker process (aspnet_wp.exe) and the role of it within the context of an application. The book also does a good job of defining the HTTP pipeline and the importance of authoring custom modules to extend/enhance an application. Really good chapters on data binding and writing custom server controls also stand out. Both beginners and experienced developers will get a lot out of these helpful and very necessary explanations.

The illustrations are very helpful, and Onion takes another rarely-used approach - explaining each and every data member for each interface implemented by ASP.NET, rather than just saying, "Class XYZ implements IASyncResult". The book's focus is giving the professional developer a better understanding of the inner-workings of the ASP.NET platform, not providing some generic code samples.

Author Onion's writing style is pleasant - he doesn't insult more experienced developers by diluting the easier material, and likewise won't render beginners numb with confusion when explaining more technical concepts.

The book's physical binding is solid, with a rugged cover, thick paper, and a spine that won't easily break while resting in your lap while coding or on your stomach while reading (like me!) At a lean 378 pages, the book features 11 power-packed chapters that won't have you forego your normal social habits just to get through it (I finished the book in two nights' time).

However, I found it curious that the book did not cover the obligatory chapter on XML Web services. This surprised me, as it has become a de facto standard for authoring ASP.NET titles to at least mention how to write "Hello, world!". No biggie on this one, just sort of surprising.

But outside of that, the book is a winner, and a must-have for experienced developers who want to augment their knowledge of ASP.NET by being aware what goes on under-the-hood.

Bravo Fritz, for a job well done!

This book, Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C#, is intended for .NET developers that want to learn ASP.NET. It expects the reader to be familiar with the basics of C#, the .NET framework, and object-oriented practices. It does not assume any exposure to web development, nor does it cover html or other non-ASP.NET web concepts. This book is about learning the essential concepts; it is not a low-level introductory book or how-to book. This also makes it a good book for those already familiar with ASP.NET that want to learn the concepts better. If you have this background and want to learn the essentials of ASP.NET, then this book is highly recommended. There is also a version of this book with the Examples in VB.NET, so C# is actually an optional requirement.

Pros:

Fritz Onion has been teaching ASP.NET for DevelopMentor from the beta days of ASP.NET and his experience shows. This book is definitely one of the easiest technical books to just sit down and read without getting bored. It explains each concept as one would expect from an experienced trainer, and the flow of the book is smooth. It assumes the reader is sufficiently familiar with the basic concepts and therefore avoids the usual details, while it goes into the underlying concepts deeper than any other general ASP.NET book that is available today. There is also a very good combination of the abstract principles and practical advice that you can use yourself. The quality of the print itself is also very relaxing since its larger than average print with extra white space.

The book starts with the objectives that ASP.NET set out to solve, including the code-behind model of VS.NET, and then proceeds with an in-depth overview of the server control concept, along with the built-in controls. The next chapters, on configuration and the pipeline, are some of the most thorough discussions I've ever seen, and it appears that many others are also recommending this book based solely on these chapters all by themselves. The rest of the chapters tend to be more independent themes, but they continue to be well-written and thorough. I'm very experienced already, and yet I learned some from those on validation, data-binding, and state management, and I can also recommend those on custom controls, caching, and security for those that don't have the experience.

Cons:

There's not a lot one can say that's bad about this book -- except that its not intended for everyone out there. Its certainly not intended for someone that's not familiar with the basics of .NET and object-oriented practices, nor is it intended to be an exhaustive reference of ASP.NET since it doesn't list or explain every class or method. It doesn't even have the usual chapter on web services, although you could actually argue that's a good thing. This books is also not intended to be a how-to or tutorial based book, but there are examples, and more online. The author never distinguishes between virtual directories and IIS applications, which is a pet peeve of mine, but its hard to find anyone that makes this distinction anymore, even though I feel its of utmost importance.

Buy It:

I give this book my strongest recommendation as a must buy if you want to know the real essentials of ASP.NET. It covers each topic with a style that makes it a joy to read, which is certainly hard to find in technical books. Its also deep enough that everyone is assured of learning something, no matter how experienced you already may be. So if you want to understand the inner concepts of ASP.NET, then this book should definitely be on your bookshelf.

Fritz has found the right to mix of giving the reader the theory and practical advice. The author assumes that the reader is familiar with .NET and is experienced in application design (I soooo wish more authors would make the same assumption!).

This book gives an experienced developer enough background to be able to make some of the most important design decisions such as when and how to separate presentation logic in custom controls; how to manage state; what data caching option to use etc.

The flow of Essential ASP.NET is absolutely impeccable. Every detail and feature of the technology is introduced at exactly the right place. I liked the flow of the book so much I've used it to put together a presentation on ASP.NET for our team.

A couple of points I wish would be better:

- The book has no description of ASP.NET Web Services - the only major topic omitted.
- There's a few graphics in the book that suppose to illustrate processing sequences. The layout of those graphics could have been done better and didn't really clarify the text they were trying to illustrate.
- The chapter on configuration spends a lot of its text describing how to work with .config files. This topic isn't really specific to ASP.NET and could have been shortened.
- The author gives valuable recommendations on design choices, but most of the advice is directed towards an Internet web application developers. I wish the author would give more consideration to options relevant to Intranet developers.

Overall: highly recommended for experienced developers.