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ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit
Visual Web Developer is a streamlined development environment focused on the needs of new developers, hobbyists, enthusiasts, and students. Wrox s ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit is an excellent tutorial to learn this new technology and toolset. Filled with sample code and no-nonsense examples, this book provides exactly what you need to start building great looking and easy-to-use Web applications out of the box by utilizing the power of ASP.NET 2.0.
The dynamic duo of David Sussman and Alex Homer have written several highly acclaimed books on ASP.NET and various other Microsoft technologies; some of their prominent works include ASP.NET 1.1 Insider Solutions, Professional ASP.NET 1.1, Pro ASP.NET Web Form Techniques, and Distributed Data Apps with ASP.NET. With Starter Kit, their latest book, the authors have provided a true step-by-step guide for someone learning ASP.NET 2.0 and attempting to use Visual Web Developer before moving to the fully featured Visual Studio .NET IDE. For a new developer, this book provides a complete toolset, with examples and the Visual Web Developer IDE on the accompanying CD.
Starter Kit is a comprehensive startup guide for the free lightweight Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition tool provided by Microsoft to build powerful Web applications with ease. Rather than presenting several incoherent examples in each chapter, the authors build one sample application from scratch and keep adding features to it as new things are introduced in different chapters. This way, a reader can thoroughly grasp, implement, backtrack, and associate with the techniques learned in an application. This approach is especially well suited for the beginner audience the book targets. It also helps those just starting to understand the different steps of the software development lifecycle, which essentially teaches them the value of building extensibility in their application design.
This book goes in depth to explain to the reader how to use new ASP.NET 2.0 reusable controls, utilize reusable code snippets in your own code, and practice rapid application development by using master pages to manage a consistent site layout. It elaborates on productivity-enhancing features like IntelliSense, drag-n-drop WSYWIG design, and built-in features like navigation control, menus, sitemaps, style sheets, templates, etc.
As mentioned earlier, this book follows a gradual approach with a no-reader-left-behind ideology. For instance, the PPQ (pizza pretty quick) sample application is designed from the ground up, and the authors do a great job of steadily building it in stages and keeping the content coherent. In Chapter 3 they explain the database design features for instance normalization, SQL queries, and relationships between tables. The next chapter delves further into details and explains about how data can be retrieved from a database and displayed on the front end. During this user interface and data binding demonstration, the GridView data control is thoroughly analyzed and event-driven architecture is discussed in depth. As the book progresses, readers learn about XML data binding, managing and editing data, as well as different types of data sources. This approach helps readers gain the confidence of building an application from scratch instead of looking in awe at existing code samples or libraries.
Topics that are considered a bit more advanced, like deployment and security, are also addressed briefly in the book but not in enough detail to provide what is expected of a developer. Regarding deployment, Starter Kit talks about how to use built-in copy-web functionality to get a Web site live over FTP. For security, the book explains the purpose and functionality of the built-in security and role management Web site. However, some topics I would ve rather seen in this book are the migration path to VS.NET 2005, Web server (IIS) feature set details, and security requirements for a Web application.
A couple of years ago I met David Sussman when he gave a presentation at a London .NET Developers meeting. I found him to be very passionate about technology; you can find this same zeal in his writing. Both authors share the same interest of educating developers to write better and more efficient code, and this book bears witness to their endeavors. If you are starting ASP.NET, are interested in knowing about Microsoft s cutting-edge server-side development technology, or are thinking about building your first dynamic Web site using this Microsoft platform, purchase this book. You ll like what you see.
Adnan Masood
Rating:
Title: ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit
Authors: David Sussman and Alex Homer
Publisher: Wrox
ISBN: 0-7645-8807-9
Web Site: http://www.wrox.com
Price: US$29.99
Page Count: 312 pages
