ASP.NET: The Complete Reference

by Matthew MacDonald

Paperback: 1002 pages
Publisher: Osborne McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0072195134; (February 21, 2002)

Get the comprehensive low-down on all seven built-in .NET Framework namespaces--plus plenty of other useful information for developers, including relevant topics like security, Web services, database development, application deployment, and more.

From the Back Cover: The Most Comprehensive ASP.NET Resource Available

Get up to speed on ASP.NET, a core Web development platform in the new Microsoft .NET Framework--with this definitive resource. You'll learn how the .NET Framework really works, master the Visual Studio .NET development environment, and learn best practices for developing powerful ASP.NET applications.

Systematically covering both basic and more advanced topics, this comprehensive guide will help you take advantage of ASP.NET's pre-built functionality and show you how to program the event-driven form model, access XML Web services, work with relational databases, and much more. You'll also find helpful security information for safeguarding your site and providing subscription services.

Thorough and organized, this one-stop reference will show you everything you need to expertly work with ASP.NET.
• Learn the fundamentals of the .NET Framework
• Explore the basics of object-oriented programming as well as Visual Basic .NET and C# syntax
• Interact with a Web page's user interface through its object layer
• Employ ASP.NET's built-in data-binding features and advanced data controls
• Design robust Web services and access them from multiple platforms
• Create your own reusable components and Web controls for ASP.NET applications
• Get at-a-glance reference information for every ASP.NET Web control and configuration setting
• Boost performance of any Web application through caching

Discover productivity tricks for mastering Visual Studio .NET and its integrated debugger

Customer Reviews
One of the most helpful books I've read, May 7, 2002
Reviewer: Channel4 from Sydney, Australia
You know when you're loking thru the myriad of books trying to decide which one is going to be your 'right hand' and not just a replication of the on-line help? well I think this is the one for me. I'm a VB/SQL Server developer with ASP experience building a commerial web site. So far this book has given me some really good ideas on migrating my existing advanced knowledge and applying it to an ASP.NET application showing me how to in a manner that is very readable and intuitive. The examples are easy to follow and more importantly they work! Really good book - 10 out of 10

Very good introduction to ASP .Net, March 27, 2002
Reviewer: Jim Storey from Sydney, Australia
I am a VB programmer moving to ASP.Net and this book was perfect for me. It covers everything from the basics up including making very definite suggestions on the best way to achieve the results you want. This includes things like the philosophy of database access on the net as opposed to client/server. I much prefer this to books that cover the langauge but don't offer real solutions. The author is brave enough to distinguish good solutions from bad. He also skips rubbish solutions that you'd never use.

The other thing I liked about the book is that it left me wanting more. The style is very easy to read and I found myself spending hours trying the samples etc. If I got stuck I could move back to earlier sections to cover the basics. This book actually deserves 4.5 stars but I'm limited in my selections. To get the full 5 stars I would have liked more details on data access and certain other areas. I also had to skip things far to basic like the few pages introducing SQL.

DON'T buy this book if you want a bible. There are plenty of those out there that cover every little detail about ASP.Net. DO buy this book if you want a good introduction to ASP.Net. I'm writing a commercial web page and I don't know if I'll need to buy another book, this one could supply enough answers along with a little more research.

Real ASP.Net Book..!, March 20, 2002
Reviewer: Ramesh Muthukumaran from Silver Spring, MD United States
ASP.Net is so different from ASP. I know that, having done Classic ASP for about 4 years now and ASP.Net from Beta1 onwards. And still this book changed the way I think of / do ASP.Net programming. The book can as well be titled "Object Oriented Approach to ASP.Net Programming". The author sticks strictly to best coding practices (than some easier way to code), goes thro most of the classes we will be using in ASP.Net and a lot more. He will go advanced but knows where to stop - telling you it's enouugh for ASP.Net (which I agree - I don't expect an ASP book to teach me .Net OOP tharoughly. I would rather turn to "OOP with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# Step by Step" by Robin A. Reynolds-Haertle or the forthcoming "Visual Basic .Net Object and Component Handbook" by Peter Vogel ).

The author explains you as if he is working with you in a senior position and has a relentless style to drag you thro all of the features in-depth and their benefits that someone new to .Net programming may be scared. VB.Net is used in sample codes (he explains every new concept with code) but initially he gives a real good comparison of C# and VB.Net including how to do the same thing in both languages (And again if I want to learn C#, I don't want to learn from some ASP.Net book - I'd rather learn from "Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step" by John Sharp, Jon Jagger or "Programming C#, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly Windows)" by Jesse Liberty or "Programming Windows(r) with C# (Core Reference)" by Charles Petzold )

That said I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has been familiar with ASP and done some programming and want to learn ASP.Net completely, tharoughly.

Back to ASP.NET Book Index

Books Subjects

Learning ASP.NET

ASP.NET Reference Manual

.NET Application & Database

ASP.NET Training Course