Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional

Product Details :

Author : Matthew MacDonald, Julian Templeman
Paperback: 1184 pages
Publisher: Apress (January 27, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 1590595726
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.0 x 2.1 inches




Book Description:

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional steers you through the maze of ASP.NET web programming concepts. You will learn language and theory simultaneously, mastering the core techniques necessary to develop good coding practices and enhance your skill set.

This book provides thorough coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from beginning to advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and performance-tuning your site. You'll find tips for best practices and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles.

The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code-behind, which will enable you to build real-world websites instead of just scraping by with simplified coding practices. By the time you finish this book, you will have mastered the core techniques essential to professional ASP.NET developers.


About the Author
Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He is a regular writer for developer journals such as Inside Visual Basic, ASPToday, and Hardcore Visual Studio .NET, and he's the author of several books about programming with .NET, including User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, The Book of VB .NET, and .NET Distributed Applications. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics. Send e-mail to him with praise, condemnation, and everything in between, to p2p@prosetech.com

Spotlight Reviews :

Reviewer: D. Hill "digahill" (Columbus, Ohio)
While I have only read around 200 of the 1000 pages in this book, I must say it is everything I expected and more. I would suggest having a general understanding of the syntax of Java or C/C++ before reading, but if you have no programming experience at all you could probably work through the initial learning curve.

The author covers most of the C# fundamentals as well as explaining why there is a need for ASP.NET. This is not a book for someone who simply wants to learn the basics of .NET 2.0 (for that, I suggest Bill Hatfields ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies), but this is the meat, potatoes, and gravy of the framework. Matthew MacDonald explains the "whys" of the techniques he presents as well as the "hows", without being wordy or overly complex. Because of this, I find it hard to put this book down.

So far, there has not been much explanation of (X)HTML or CSS, because this book is more focused on development rather than design. While you don't need to know the intricate details of HTML or CSS to use .NET, you should have at least a basic understanding if you expect to create decent looking webpages. (There are so many resources for XHTML and CSS...try w3cshools.com for starters.)

I am a working web designer who has a need to begin developing in ASP.NET, so I knew I needed an in depth book like this. If you are unsure if .NET is right for you, I recommend reading a lighter book, such as Bill Hatfield's ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies, before tackling what will probably be at least a two month course in learning the framework.

The only flaws I have seen in the first 200 pages are subtle, such as using the the "b" tag for bold instead of the current standard, "strong". That may be nitpicking, but I must point it out.

This book is perfect for someone who knows they want to create websites in ASP.NET, understands the basic concepts of OOP, has an intermediate knowledge of HTML and CSS design principals, and is willing to take the time to practice the examples demonstrated in the text.

Reviewer: Yi Lei Wu (Guangzhou, China)
I am an experienced web developer and just begin my study of ASP .NET 2.0 technology. Compare to the other books that I read, this book is very easy to follow and learn from. It introduces the core concepts and techniques of ASP .NET 2.0 in easy and concise way such that there is no gibberish.

I personally do not like books that talk a lot of useless stuff and complicated concepts that serve no practical use, such as most of the J2EE books.

This book is so easy and simple to follow such that anyone with a little programming background can read. Besides, it has many useful examples to introduce the techniques in making ASP .NET 2.0 applications.

Moreover, it uses Visual Studio 2005 as its core IDE. This is a very cool tool!
One major drawback of J2EE is also its lack of a generic and full-featured IDE like Visual Studio.

I tried Eclipse and various others... so far only Oracle's JDeveloper satisfied me. Most others are so complicated to use such that the learning curve is just too high!

I gave this book a 4 star because I hardly gave any book a 5 star. It's a good book, but the term "perfect" in my mind doesn't come easily.