Professional ASP.NET 1.0 (2002 Edition)

by Alex Homer, Dave Sussman

Paperback: 1300 pages
Publisher: Wrox Press Inc
ISBN: 1861007035; Special edition (February 2002)

This comprehensive compendium provides a broad and thorough investigation of all aspects of programming with ASP.NET. Entirely revised and updated for the Golden Release of .NET, this book will give you the information you need to master ASP.NET and build dynamic, successful, enterprise Web applications.

With this Special Edition, you can access this book free for one year on Wroxbase - Wrox's new online library of books.

Those who have purchased the previous edition of this book will be able to access this book at Wroxbase at a specially reduced rate. To find out more about Wroxbase, visit wroxbase.com.

In this book, we:
• Explain what ASP.NET is, and how it makes building applications even easier
• Show how easy it is to work with ASP.NET pages and server-side controls
• Access data of all kinds in our ASP.NET pages, and introduce ADO.NET
• Examine how XML is an integral part of data manipulation
• Use Web Services to provide asynchronous background services to applications
• Discuss and demonstrate the ASP.NET application framework
• Show how easy it is to build and deploy custom ASP.NET controls
• Combine the concepts discussed in the book into an ASP.NET application
• Discuss how it is possible to migrate from ASP to ASP.NET

From the Publisher: This book is aimed at experienced ASP developers who are working at the leading edge, rather than the casual ASP developer or beginner. For example, we do not cover the basics of COM, ASP, or the programming languages we use in this book.

You don't need to be experienced with ASP to make the most of this book although being relatively comfortable with ASP concepts with certainly help. This book is also ideal for Visual Basic developers who want to make the move into Web application design. You should also understand the general principles of the use of components, and have knowledge of Visual Basic (or VBScript). Some of the samples are written in other languages, such JScript and C#, but you don't need to be fluent in these languages to be able to use this book.

About the Author: Richard Anderson is an experienced software engineer and writer who spends his time working with Microsoft technologies, day in day out. Having spent the better part of a decade doing this, he is still remarkably sane! Richard currently works for BMS software - an ADP company - where he is a technical architecture manager. Richard is currently working on the development of a large-scale Internet-based payroll and HR system.

Brian Francis is the Technical Sales Director for NCR's Web Kiosk Solutions. From his office in Duluth, Georgia, Brian is responsible for enlightening NCR and its customers on the technologies and tools used for Web Kiosk Applications. He is the author/co-author of numerous Wrox books including the Professional and Beginning ASP series of books, and is now totally immersed in the .NET world....

Customer Reviews
There needs to be two!, April 8, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Atlanta, GA USA
This is a great book and I would suggest it if you are learning ASP.NET. However!!! There really does need to be two books, one for VB.NET and one for C#. Most of the examples are in VB.net and this make it frustrating for C# developers. The book claims this does not matter, but it does.

Occasionally Great, Usually Mediocre, March 24, 2002
Reviewer: Gary
This was just about the first ASP.NET book out there. The first edition dates back almost a year! Many ASP.NET developers used this to get started (like me), and believe me, it wasn't always easy. There are some great parts, some incredibly repetitive parts (the effect of having so many authors), and some infuriating mistakes. Finally they fixed those in this edition--did anyone else but me struggle with the completely wrong description of security rule priority?

The factual problems are fixed in this version, but it is still a painfully disorganized way to learn. It's best for programmers with hefty .NET and ASP experience. Many fundamentals (like session state) just aren't covered. Now there are other best first choices. I particularly like ASP.NET The Complete Reference (McGraww Hill), which has a comprehensive look at code-behind development, VS.NET, and best practices, which most books ignore. Another good one is Programming ASP.NET (Oreilly) which covers everthing in VB and C#! AsP.nET unleashed is a solid title too (very comprehensive), but it is a little wonky in places. Who would use a database trigger to write a file on updates? That's one of the most unscalable ideas i've ever heard. One thing I've discovered is that books that pretend to be more specific, like e-commerce with ASP.NET, or data-driven sites with ASP.NET, are really just basic ASP.NET introductions that don't cover all the features. You are best off (right now at least) with an all in one.

In short, this book will do, and has good parts. But why bother now that other books (written carefully by a single guru instead of patched together from a whole comittee) are available?

Possibily the most frustrating book on asp.net, May 23, 2002
Reviewer: japanfirst from Japan
I found this book frustrating for so many reasons but the most prominent are:

* most of the code in the book is in VB.net and a smattering of C# - and no matter what the authors say you can't learn this in two languages. It would have been nicer to see a separate C# edition. I kept trying to port the vb code to C# and ran into problem after problem.

* most of the sample code is buggy and a pain to get going. trying to follow the examples in the book with the code provided felt like a great waste of time. But more than that the way they structured the code was weird. They put the connection string in a usercontrol. Dont you think putting it in the config file or a db class would have been better. And dont even get me started on why they use three different connection methods. And not once did I see code behind.

* Structure of the book could have been better as well. There is little sense of evolution in your work - each chapter is self contained and that has its benefits but you couldnt see how to put everything together - enterprise class system design is definitely not present.

Too Much Theory, May 13, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Denver, CO
The book, although SLAMMED with lots of info about WHY asp.net is useful & WHY you should use it, doesn't provide you with information on HOW to use it. The book doesn't seem like a useful tool for individuals making the transition from ASP to ASP.NET as far as providing useful examples & syntax reference.

It's loaded with theory & overview information but provides little in the way of examples, syntax, & reference.

Back to ASP.NET Book Index

Books Subjects

Learning ASP.NET

ASP.NET Reference Manual

.NET Application & Database

ASP.NET Training Course