Programming ASP.NET, 3rd Edition (Programming)

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. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: 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.

Product Description
O'Reilly has once again updated its bestselling tutorial on ASP.NET, the world's leading web development tool from Microsoft. In Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition, authors Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz give you the lowdown on the technology's latest version, ASP.NET 2.0, as well as Visual Studio 2005.

Among the most significant improvements to ASP.NET 2.0 are new server controls and services that make you dramatically more productive. In fact, when compared to its predecessor, ASP.NET 2.0 reduces the amount of code you have to write by about 75%. Creating interactive web applications has never been easier-but that still doesn't mean it's hassle-free! The difficulty in ASP.NET 2.0 is that it's so complete and flexible that there are many pieces that must be woven together to build a robust, scalable, and efficient application.

Fortunately, Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition is on the case, dispensing all the information you need to be effective with this dynamic tool. For starters, the book features a comprehensive tutorial on Web Forms, the user interface that gives web applications their look and feel. It then offers detailed explanations of all new controls, including web server controls, HTML controls, and custom controls. Used properly, these controls are able to take care of nearly all the foundation work-security, data access, layout, etc.-that you would normally have to write yourself. Free of these burdensome tasks, you can instead focus on your specific application.

Other new material found in this updated edition even shows you how to create ASP.NET 2.0 pages for mobile devices. With Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition at your side, there's virtually no end to the programming possibilities.

The coverage of the various controls is excellent, the examples are small and useful and really explain the material, and you can download the examples from the author's web site.

In addition, this book provides an excellent introduction to ADO.NET for ASP.NET, better than some dedicated books I looked at.

The book goes beyond the superficial, and really covers the issues you run into when writing an application. This is not a rehash of the existing documentation, but a guided tour through what it takes to create a working web application with ASP.NET.

I personally like C#, but it was interesting to see the code both in C# and in VB.NET. I feel like I learned VB.NET along the way, as a bonus, and I realize now how similar these languages really are. You can skip over the language you don't care about (all the examples are in both C# and in VB.NET) but it is fun to see how similar they are.

In any case, I highly recommend this book both for programmers with little ASP experience, and for more advanced programmers as well.


Clearing up misconceptions   March 10, 2007
Lloyd W. Mcfarlin (Denver, CO)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This book is a C# book. The reviews here, along with Amazon's own review, are referring to one of the previous editions where VB.NET code samples were included.

When deciding to buy this book, or not, be wary of the reviews that were posted before the publication date. I can see that this situation has already caused others some grief.


Get this for ASP.NET with C#   June 28, 2004
C. Jones (Lauderhill, FL)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I was looking for a book that thoroughly taught ASP.NET and took the C# language seriously and not as an afterthought. This book is absolutely perfect. It explains the intrinsics of ASP.NET and its theoretical underpinnings. It also has very good practical information with regard to many of the decisions you will have to make in terms of the tools and different approaches you face when programming in ASP.NET. What I liked most of all was that it has every example in C# which most ASP.NET authors seem to shy away from for some bizarre reason. If you want to learn ASP.NET thoroughly with C# syntax I can recommend no other and I have read quite a few.


Must Read For All ASP.NET Developers   February 8, 2006
Daniel McKinnon (Tewksbury, MA USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Jesse Liberty continues to shine as one of the best .NET authors in the industry today. With the 3rd Edition of 'Programming ASP.NET', Liberty hits another home run out of the park, providing a resource that experienced and new ASP.NET users can use every day.

Cramming over 900 pages of information into this book, this book is a fantastic bargain at its retail price point. 19 Chapters are covered in this guide, the likes of which I will outline here:

01. ASP.NET 2.0 Overview
02. Visual Studio 2005 examination
03. Controls in ASP.NET
04. Basic Controls
05. Advanced Controls
06. Web Site Basics
07. Tracing, Debugging, Error Handling
08. Validation in ASP.NET
09. Data Access
10. ADO.NET
11. Forms-Based Security
12. Master Pages
13. Personalizing in ASP.NET
14. Custom & User Controls
15. Creating Web Services
16. Using Web Services
17. Caching & Performance
18. Application Configuration
19. Deploying your site

This book is laid out in logical structure and is very easy to follow. The author covers each section in furious detail, providing plenty of examples and screenshots to make things fun for all level users. Intelligent uses of design charts, bolding, and lists only add to the user experience.

ASP.NET 2.0 is different from 1.1, and the author goes over the differences and why it's not a simple upgrade like adding a couple of new windows like in previous iterations of Microsoft Word. My favorite addition in 2.0 and the most handy new feature is the addition of the new Master Pages which enable a common look to progress throughout an entire web site. Before this feature was included, it would have required a lot more work and time to accomplish this task. With 2.0, Microsoft's .NET team has simplified the entire process.

To put it simply, this is an outstanding guide, but it's not perfect. The book is so large that it might be overwhelming for some users who would prefer a more streamlined guide to learning ASP.NET 2.0. Probably the best way to dive into this technology would be to pick up a copy of ASP.NET 2.0 A Developer's Notebook to get a quicker overview, and then read this guide to get into the finer details.

If you program with ASP.NET 2.0 or one of the earlier versions, you would be remiss to not pick up this book. It's a great deal and the writing is top notch. You won't be disappointed!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED