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Moving To ASP.NET: Web Development with VB.NET
by Steve Harris, Rob Macdonald

Publisher: Apress Buy it Now!
 
ISBN: 1590590090
Format: Paperback, 739pp
CD: NO

Moving to ASP.NET provides focused and thorough guidance on creating Web applications using ASP.NET, including both Web Form applications and Web Services. This book is targeted at current developers rather than novices, and assumes that readers will gain an understanding of companion technologies (such as VB .NET and ADO.NET) from other sources.

For a start, this was one of the first books that assumes you'll be using the productivity features of VS.NET, moving away from the strange concepts of Beta-2-style programming in Notepad and equally non-visual environments. It starts by explaining the basic principles of server objects, Web forms, HTML controls and Web controls (I know, too many concepts that sound similar...). Chapter on building the custom Web controls offers an in-depth tutorial that will provide you with all the necessary information on this topic. Going further, the chapter describing development principles for mobile Web applications is one of my favorites, as it carefully guides the reader through this uncharted territory and offers many practical advices and troubleshooting tips.

Chapters titled "Working with Databases" and "Data Binding" feature more than 100 pages filled with essential information for every professional developer. However, "Working with XML" is the only weak link in this book, as the authors honestly admit that "...we thought no one would buy this book unless we included a chapter on XML". XML is a topic of such extreme importance, but the complete coverage would admitably require much more space. Anyway, it will provide you with the basic information, but don't expect too much from this chapter.

The following chapters on Web application structure, security, Web application design, Web services and scalability are filled with clear descriptions of advanced techniques and really make this book stand out from the rest of the crowd. I had some problems with security and scalability issues at my ASP.NET sites that were solved almost instantly after reading them. A set of carefully designed appendices also comes very handy in everyday work.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone coming to ASP.NET from a Visual Basic/"classic" ASP programming background and looking to develop robust and scalable Web applications. Maybe it doesn't apply to the entry and guru levels, but everything in-between is very well covered.