PRObooks
ASP.NET Mobile Controls Tutorial Guide
With the advent of all things .NET, Microsoft is addressing a multitude of problems related to the Internet-connected development world. The .NET Framework is finding its way to service devices that don t even run a Microsoft operating system. ASP.NET mobile controls are component-based, server-side extensions of the .NET Framework that provide developers the capability and flexibility to make such extensibility possible. Now, publishers of technical books are releasing new titles to address this technology, such as the book ASP.NET Mobile Controls Tutorial Guide from Wrox Publishers.
The book begins with a detailed description of how to establish an ideal development configuration, one that s capable of testing mobile-control output to several different emulated devices. The chapters that follow provide comprehensive explanations of each of the mobile:x tag sets. I also would have liked a list of these mobile tags on an inside cover or in a separate appendix, but the book doesn t provide one. After the explanation of the tags, the book offers an example of writing custom, user-based mobile controls. The chapter on configuring the mobile controls to work with undefined devices also is quite helpful. It provides developers confidence that their code investment will support future Internet-enabled thin clients. The book provides a chapter on Web Services, though the authors admit its superficial exposure of the topic is better presented in a separate Web Services-specific Wrox title. Security and state management also are covered.
ASP.NET Mobile Controls Tutorial Guide features a single demonstration application written in C#, of a restaurant s reservation system. This example is fairly comprehensive, but I would have preferred to see at least two additional project samples.
Overall, the book is a more detailed exploration of the Microsoft .NET mobile-control suite than you ll find in general ASP.NET books. At times, however, the book delivers only the minimum presentation requirements necessary to describe the technology. Maybe Wrox intended to extend the book with more information. The publisher s Web site advertises the book as being 600 pages long, but the copy I reviewed had only 450 pages. Perhaps in the second edition, those missing pages will address my criticisms.
Mike Riley
ASP.NET Mobile Controls Tutorial Guide by Matt Butler, Mathew Gibbs, Constantinos Hadjisotiriou, Neil Raybould, and Srinivasa Sivakumar, Wrox Publishing, http://www.wrox.com.
Rating:
ISBN: 1-861-00522-9
Cover Price: US$39.99
(450 pages)
