Designing Microsoft ASP.NET Applications

This core reference demonstrates the latest techniques for building dynamic, ultra-scalable business solutions with Active Server Pages.NET-formerly ASP+. After surveying the history of ASP programming, the book shows how ASP.NET integrates with the COM+ 2.0 runtime environment and uses Extensible Markup Language (XML), ActiveX(r) Data Objects .NET (formerly ADO+), Web Services, and Web Forms to create powerful Web solutions. It comes with code samples on CD-ROM in Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C# development system.

The appendix on configuring IIS was also helpful. Most of what you need to know can be explained in one appendix chapter. If your are coming from a C++/Windows (not a web developer) background you really need a summary not another book to buy. Why all books don't have this is strange.


Good, informative read from someone who's got experience   January 17, 2002
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

As typical of many technical books, I don't like the title of this book. I didn't feel I was reading a book on how to architect a site built on ASP.NET. However, I did find this book to be a very useful tutorial on ASP.NET. It was an easy read and contained lots of useful tips and gotchas that are the result of the author's experience in working with .NET. The author's writing style is easy to tread through and contains lots of useful nuggets of info.

The other book I have on ASP.NET is Professional ASP.NET from Wrox, and I found this book complemented that book nicely. Where the Wrox book is a bit wordy and allows me to get lost in the details, this book is to the point and lets me see the forest for the trees...so to speak. While it didn't go too deeply into all the technical details of ASP.NET (hey, that's what MSDN is for) it did provide enought information for me to feel much more comfortable in ASP.NET after reading it. I recommend it to anyone looking to get a grasp on what ASP.NET is all about.


Good Perspective   November 14, 2002
Mr. Raymond Ovanessian (Westlake Village, Ca United States)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

I find myself agreeing with most of the reviews here!

Even though this books lacks a great deal of detail, and thus is hardly a definitive guide (it's title doesn't claim to be), it contains some very informative in-depth coverage, providing very useful insights. The explanation of concepts that you'll need for application design are more thoroughly done, and that has helped improve my view of how the pieces fit. I own four highly rated ASP.NET books, and I find more rigorous tutoring of critical concepts in this one than any of the others. They offer lots of detail, this one offers some important clues that you'll need to connect the dots, plus some detail.


Very complete but missing labs...   December 17, 2001
Sylvain Audet (Quebec, Canada)
1 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am a professional senior ASP developer and this book is my first dive into the ASP.NET world. I find it very interesting but having some labs to practice along the way would have been a major plus.

Sylvain Audet - MCP+SB
Internet Consultant / Senior Web-developer
(...)


Good ASP.NET book   January 23, 2002
gbworld@comcast.net
26 out of 29 found this review helpful

After working with ASP.NET for more than a year and a half, I am glad to see that the product is very near to its ship date. Perhaps this is why we are finally seeing some good books on the market.

Of all the ASP.NET books out thus far, this is the first that actually follows proper development practice, according to Microsoft. Let me explain:

* While most of the ASP.NET books slap code into the ASP.NET page (which is legal), the paradigm is separation of code and tags using a CodeBehind file. This is the first book that follows that paradigm, over all. The chapter on validation is the most glaring fallback.

* While most of the books on the market are placing their SQL code in the page, this one is actually using SQL stored procedures to create a data tier (thin, but still a data tier).

Now that I have worked through the good, let's look at the shortcomings. While there is a lot of good material, it is rather thin. This can partially be blamed on the breadth of ASP.NET, but it can also be blamed on a tighter focus. This is not a major shortcoming, overall, but, after spending the first few chapters introducing the framework, et al, you would think the author would have some form of object reference somewhere.

Shining moments:
* Validation controls - this is very useful stuff
* Working with Visual Studio .NET - some of the most useful screen shots I have seen.
* User controls - while a bit thin, a great into to real world user controls.
* ADO.NET - while the coverage is not in depth, the material that is there is well worth the read
* XML Web Services - nice, real world perspective

While a beginner might be able to pick up this book and run with it, the material is not aimed at those without programming experience. Keep this in mind if you are planning on using this book to learn your first language.