Programming ASP.NET (O'Reilly Windows)

by Jesse Liberty, Dan Hurwitz

Paperback: 960 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
ISBN: 0596001711; 1 edition (February 2002)

Suitable for most any programmer who wants to master ASP.NET with an eye toward real-world development, Programming ASP.NET is an excellent resource that mixes good coverage of APIs with actual programming techniques and advice using Visual Basic .NET and C#. The combination places it in the forefront of currently available titles on ASP.NET.

Written in part by veteran computer author Jesse Liberty, this book offers an excellent mix of coverage of important ASP.NET features that you will absolutely need to use for real-world programming. Readers with previous ASP experience will appreciate early sections that compare an older ASP sample with the new ASP.NET to highlight what's new and improved, with good explanation of the ASP.NET event model. The pace of this book is just excellent. The authors first move through the essentials, like basic ASP Web controls and data binding, before delving into data-driven applications using the (slightly complicated) ASP.NET database APIs. It also helps that the authors let you use Notepad (or another text editor) to create your ASP.NET programs first. (Later, they cover the details of Visual Studio .NET, pointing out how this tool can sometimes make it difficult to see where your code is generated.) There's also coverage of debugging and tracing techniques.

Standout sections on the calendar, Repeater, DataList, and DataGrid controls (all presented in good detail) will help you master these important controls. Coverage of techniques and support for validating user input in Web pages will also help you use these essential features.

The author's well-measured tutorial on Web services (much touted by Microsoft) is as good as any. Their demos (using a well-traveled example of a stock ticker server) will show you what all the fuss is about. They cut through the hype here and manage to show why Web services are a potentially better way toward distributed computing. Later sections look at deployment, configuration, and performance (as well as caching) options that you'll need to deploy and run your ASP.NET programs successfully. Coverage of security options in .NET rounds out the tour of what you'll need to create real applications.

Illustrated throughout with samples from VB .NET and C#, Programming ASP.NET is a worthy addition to the O'Reilly lineup and one of the best available titles for learning ASP.NET. The authors have achieved an excellent balance of practical, hands-on examples and essential programming techniques with the most important APIs and features, all without getting bogged down in the richness and complexity of .NET itself.

Topics covered in Programming ASP.NET:
• Introduction to the .NET platform and ASP.NET
• Basic programs in HTML
• ASP and ASP.NET compared
• Events in ASP.NET (application, session, page, and control events)
• HTML and ASP controls compared
• Basic ASP controls APIs (including in-depth coverage of calendar support)
• Code behind forms
• Using the Visual Studio .NET IDE
• Tracing, debugging, and error handling
• Validation controls in ASP.NET (including built-in and custom validators, plus regular expression support)
• Basic data-binding techniques
• List and DataGrid controls
• ADO.NET tutorial (basic APIs and programming techniques)
• Calling stored procedures
• Updating database records
• Repeater and DataList controls used with ADO.NET
• Custom ASP.NET controls (including derived, composite, and full custom controls)
• Overview of Web services (including SOAP, WSDL, and other standards)
• Creating and consuming a sample Web service for a stock ticker
• ASP.NET caching techniques explained (including fragment and object caching)
• Security options in ASP.NET for authentication, authorization, and impersonation; configuration and deployment options in ASP.NET (including XCOPY deployment)
• And an appendix with a quick tutorial on database design.

Book Description: ASP.NET is the successor technology to Active Server Pages (ASP), the world’s most successful development environment for building server-side web applications. ASP.NET leverages the power of Microsoft’s new .NET platform to allow you to write dynamic, data-driven applications that run over the World Wide Web.

In Programming ASP.NET, Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz teach you everything you need to know to write web applications and web service applications. The book focuses on ASP.NET development using both C# and Visual Basic .NET, and coding examples are presented in both languages.

Programming ASP.NET includes a detailed tutorial on Web Forms, which, in conjunction with Visual Studio .NET, allow you to apply Rapid Application Development techniques (including drag-and-drop control placement) to web development. Programming ASP.NET includes extensive coverage of each type of server control, including Web server controls, HTML server controls, and custom controls.

Since most web applications and web services involve retrieving data and returning it to a client browser, Programming ASP.NET also offers extensive coverage of data access issues. These include topics such as using ASP.NET’s list-bound controls; accessing data using the ADO.NET object model, and updating data with or without transaction support.

Programming ASP.NET also discusses such advanced topics as:

Caching and performance Security Configuration and deployment

The ASP.NET technologies are so complete and flexible; your main difficulty may lie simply in weaving the pieces together for maximum efficiency. Programming ASP.NET shows you how to do just that.

From the Publisher: This book is based on the first official release of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework.

About the Author: Jesse Liberty is the best selling author of Programming ASP.NET, Programming C#, and a dozen other books on web and object oriented programming. He is president of Liberty Associates, Inc., where he provides contract programming, consulting and on-site training in ASP.NET, C#, C++ and related topics. Jesse has been a Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T and Vice President for technology development at CitiBank.

Dan Hurwitz is the president of Sterling Solutions, Inc., where for nearly two decades he has been providing contract programming and database development to a wide variety of clients.

Customer Reviews
Brilliant!, April 11, 2002
Reviewer: jschafer12 from Miami, FL
I enjoyed Liberty's Programming C#, but this book is even better. He and Hurwitz write well (in fact, it is impossible to tell that there are two authos, they write as one). The book offers every example in both VB and C# which was very much appreciated.

I was not an ASP programmer, but this book takes you from the fundamentals through the more advanced material. The explanations are clear, the coverage of advanced topics like ADO.NET and custom controls is first class. I highly recommend this book.

Good book, but needs to polish the rough edges, April 3, 2002
Reviewer: Dan Cramer from San Diego, CA USA
Of all the books on ASP.NET that I've read, this book is undoubtedly the best. But, it has some very rough edges that, when smoothed out in later editions will make it great. For those looking for a reference, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a strong tutorial that does an excellent job balancing depth for the experienced and simplicity for the beginner, this is the book.

Specific comments:

1. All examples in C# and VB. his is a plus or minus depending on your point of view. On one hand it's good because you have the option of choosing the language you want to use (or get exposure to both). On the other hand, it takes up a lot of space that could have been devoted further exploration of other topics.

2. Does not try to be a tutorial on how to program with VB or C#. I definitely like this approach. Other books on the market split their efforts between explaining ASP.NET and OOP/C#/VB. They end up being avarage at best for either topic.

3. The examples almost always do a good job demonstrating the topic under discussion. Other books on the market have serious problems in this area.

4. The examples are not consistent. I think that the examples were developed by different people. In one example, it is a step by step tutorial The next example, the examples are rough descriptions followed by source code (hard to follow). Yet another example will have a table layout of object property values. This is my biggest complaint. It would be nice if there was a consistent approach to the examples.

5. The ADO chapters are a bit confusing. A couple reasons for this:

5.a The examples here suffer from varying styles worst of all.

5.b ADO.NET is a big topic that probably deserves a book to itself (how about it O'Reilly? Programming ADO.NET) so the coverage is not enough, and it leaves you with lots of questions.

Overall, this book is the best I've found for a tutorial on ASP.NET. And, it has the potential to be another O'Reilly classic.

Comprehensive and well written, May 22, 2002
Reviewer: William Dickie from NYC
This is another well written and fully comprehensive book by O'Reilly. I was very impressed by the excellent coverage and by the quality of the writing. One key feature of this book is that it goes welll beyond the basics, and well beyond the Microsoft documentation to explain not only how you do things, but why you do them. Each concept is put in context and illustrated with working code.

The authors support this book well on the web, and full source code is available. In short, I was very impressed by this excellent book.

A good starting point for ASP.NET, May 15, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Houston, Texas USA
First of all, I would have given 5 stars if the last chapters were edited better for the examples, but I am glad that the book covers little of everything for us to get a taste of it. Anyways think of it as combination appetizer plate. Once I read and did the samples you just get anxious for more. I would definetly recommend this book compared to the other books, like Wrox (who tend to put too many chefs in the same kitchen) making the book inconsistent. After this book you can then look for more in depth on the topics you are interested in. Mr. Libery prepared this dish in a well composed manner for us to tryout before ordering the main dish.

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