Product Description

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C#: 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #254292 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1184 pages

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.

Customer Reviews

A Must-Have Book for ASP.NET 2.0
This book is a new edition of the excellent book "Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 in C#". I've read both, so I can freely say that this is an example of the good getting better. Quite simply, there is no other book I'd recommend for new ASP.NET developers. This one is more rigorous, organized, and thorough than any other beginner book I've found. It hits all the bases--covering the C# language, OOP, Visual Studio, web services, components, custom controls, you name it. It's also one of the few books that has real-world code in the database and security chapters. (Most other beginner books dumb it down with truly useless techniques.)

And in response to the review left by "developer" who claims the book is short on ASP.NET 2.0 content--I have to wonder whether you've read the book! Did you not see the complete chapters on master pages and themes, website navigation, the new data controls, membership, profiles, and web parts?? All of these are brand new features, with comprehensive coverage.

There is just no other book for beginning ASP.NET 2.0.

So far, so great.
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.

Incorrect Code
When I first started to work with this book I was actually impressed. The author seemed to be clear and easy to understand. But once we started getting into code the whole thing started falling apart. The code samples in the book frequently just dont work. From typo's which are easy to find to entirely left out concepts and sections of necessary code. At first in the more basic section of the book it's not so bad because the programs are simple and its usually fairly easy to figure out where the mistake was. But the further in you get and the more complex the code becomes the worse it gets. In some samples short of opening up his own downloadable sample code and looking at where his sample code is completely different from what he is telling you to do in the book it is virtually impossible for a beginner to the language to figure out.

Now me I'm just stubborn so I stick with it until I figure it out but I frequently have to go to outside sources and chat groups to try and figure out what the problem is which in my opinion just shouldn't be the case in a well thought out book. Maybe if it was a professional book where the user is suppose to have some knowledge it would be acceptable. But for a beginner to have to try and figure out entire concepts and classes that are missing entirely from the examples and are vital to the successful implimentation of the code. Well that is just unacceptable. Its sloppy and a book that costs 49.99 ought to be free of such errors.