Review: Programming ASP.NET
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Published: 09 Jan 2006
Unedited - Community Contributed
Abstract
Programming ASP.NET provides in-depth coverage about the new version of one of the powerful server side technology, and this article shows a glimpse of what is packed inside this book.
by Anand Narayanaswamy
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Review

ASP.NET is one of the hottest and latest technologies used for building fast and secured server-side applications. No wonder, ASP.NET 2.0 has simplified the work for developers by introducing new Web form controls, namespaces, and classes. Moreover, developers need not have to spend a long time coding as it has been reduced to a great extent due to the introduction of new features. There are many resources available on the Web for learning ASP.NET 2.0. The main disadvantage of this is that learners have to be online to access these materials. Moreover, none of them completely touches all aspects of the technology.

Programming ASP.NET, by Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz, is an excellent resource for learners and developers as this book covers almost all the areas involved with ASP.NET 2.0. The book has been divided into 19 chapters and 2 appendixes. The first chapter examines the general concepts of ASP.NET 2.0, such as its history, new features, and also Visual Studio 2005. This chapter also includes a short write-up about mobile devices. The second chapter covers Visual Studio 2005. It is a long chapter that outlines each and every item shipped with the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The third chapter examines some of the fundamental concepts, such as event handling, ASP.NET server controls. The fourth and fifth chapter examines the basic and advanced controls included with ASP.NET 2.0.

An important point to note is that each control has been explained with one example and complete source code. The authors have provided a list of useful properties for each control in tabular format along with relevant explanations. Some of the interesting facts have been given in small font either as a tip or note. As I mentioned above, Chapter 5 covers advanced controls such as Multiview, View, FileUpload and Calendar, in addition to many others.

Chapters 6 and 7 examine the concepts behind State, Directives, Tracing, Debugging and Error Handling with the help of screenshots. While chapter 8 covers about Validation controls, chapter 9 provides an exhaustive coverage about Data Access controls such as GridView, DataList, Repeater, DetailsView and FormsView. Chapter 10 provides a comprehensive overview about ADO.NET such as establishing a connection with a database and creation of primary and foreign keys in addition to the usual topics.

While chapter 11 examines all the aspects of Security, chapter 12 provides a nice coverage about Master Pages and Navigation. Chapter 13 provides a brief overview of the new features included with ASP.NET 2.0 such as Personalization, Themes, Skins and Web Parts. Chapter 14 examines the creation of user controls with the help of examples. Web Services are a core part of the .NET Framework, and this topic has been examined in detail in chapters 15 and 16. The authors delve deep into the topic with the help of pictures, source code, and explanations of each of the properties. Chapter 15 also includes a sample Web service application called StockTicketComplete with complete source code.

Chapter 17 examines the concepts behind caching and some of the performance related issues including benchmarking and profiling. The final two chapters deal with configuration and deployment of ASP.NET applications. The authors have provided a good coverage about the various kinds of deployment, such as creating a setup project with the built-in setup wizard and much more.

This book ships with two useful appendixes. The first one provides a list of keyboard shortcuts which you will use while working with Visual Studio 2005. The second appendix is a short primer about relational databases and covers tables, records, columns, and the concepts behind normalization and joins. I would suggest the author include one appendix about the naming conventions that should be followed while working with ASP.NET in the next edition of this book.

Although this book touches the majority of the topics involved with ASP.NET 2.0, it failed to provide any coverage about System.Net.Mail namespace. The authors should provide a nice explanation to the important classes and methods in a separate chapter as majority of developers uses this namespace to collect feedback from their users and also to send automated e-mail or password to them after they sign up on the website.

Further, this book should include a CD-ROM with the relevant source code files and preferably with softwares such as .NET SDK 2.0 and Visual Web Developer 2005 Express edition so that learners can use this book as an instant learning kit without any need to download these from the web. It should be noted that majority of the readers might not have access to Visual Studio 2005 and hence the CD would be a good companion for them. Authors should also provide a list of useful reference materials available on the web at the end of this book.

The author maintains a website for providing support for this book and readers can download the complete source code from the website. The author also runs a discussion forum where readers can post their questions after reading the book. I hope that this is a great way to keep in touch with the readers worldwide. It would be great if the author provided the source code for all the examples in Visual Basic .NET as well on the website so that those readers who hate semicolons can make use of those. I would suggest the publisher to modify the title of the book as Programming ASP.NET 2.0 as it will help the buyer to know which version of ASP.NET has been covered on the book.

Finally, Programming ASP.NET is an ideal reference material for all those who want to learn and master ASP.NET 2.0 in a shortest possible time.

About the Book

Title

Programming ASP.NET

Authors

Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz

Publisher

O’Reilly

Edition

Third

Pages

930 (Including Index)

Price

US $49.95

Rating

****

Related URL

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/progaspdotnet3/

 

 



User Comments

Title: FAQ's   
Name: Nitin Sharma (.Net Technologies)
Date: 2007-06-26 4:37:14 AM
Comment:
fine...

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