ASP.Net Information and Books Blog

Professional ASP NET Web Services

This book will show you how to create high-quality Web Services using ASP.NET. It describes the standards that are core to the Web Services architecture and examines how these standards are integrated into ASP.NET. The processes involved in building and consuming Web Services are discussed along with in-depth code examples. The book concludes with three case studies, each examining a different application of Web Services, and presenting a complete solution.

This book covers:

* Building and consuming Web Services in ASP.NET
* Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
* Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
* Discovering Web Services with UDDI
* Exposing data sources through Web Services
* Performance techniques
* Securing Web Services
* Transactional Web Services
* .NET My Services (Hailstorm)

The code in this book is presented in C#. Full Visual Basic .NET versions of all code samples and case studies are available along with C# downloads on the Wrox website.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good for solid understanding
Together with Professional C# Web Services, also from Wrox, these books will give you a solid base to really understand Web Services and Remoting. The basics are quite simple but you will also learn some useful advanced topics. I’ve always liked the Wrox style of writing, I think it’s easy to read and follow the code examples. The only criticism is the number of authors. Some smaller parts are repeated and the style is not always consistent.

3 Stars help - cannot find code for this book
Hello,I have just purchased this book. however i am unable to download the code for this book as it is not available on the wrox web site. I have also tried the Apress and wiely web sites but they too do not have the code for this book.Can somebody pls. mail me the code of this book if they have it?

thanks in advance

pune40@gmail.com

4 Stars Help - i cannot find the code for this book too
Hi, i have purchased this book long ago.

However i am unable too, to download the code for this book as it is not available on the wrox web site. I have also tried the Apress and Wiley Publishing web sites but they too do not have the code for this book. Can somebody pls. mail me the code of this book if they have it?

Thanks in advance,

joao.mlp.jorge@gmail.com

3 Stars help, codes of the book
I am very interested in buying this book. However, i can’t find any place to download the code of the book from the internet. If anybody get the codes could you please send it to my following email address: elud337@o2.co.uk.Thanks you very much!

4 Stars This book is for EXPERIENCED programmers
I read the book several times. I did some of the examples. The examples worked with no changes necessary. On the [web page], the book has an errata list, which is pretty small. The source code for C# and VB are on the wrox website. This book is for EXPERIENCED programmers. Don’t even try to read it if you have no prior knowledge of web services.

The book has an excellent introduction to ASP.NET for web services. It probably is worth just going over the first two chapters to get a flavor of web services. Word of caution, I downloaded the VB samples, and they were a bit buggy. If you are a C# developer, the code in the book was fine. The VB code was not…

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Core Internet Application Development with ASP NET 2 0 Core Series

The Comprehensive Guide to ASP.NET 2.0 for Experienced Developers

ASP.NET 2.0 represents a true breakthrough in Web development technology and delivers unprecedented power, flexibility, and efficiency. If you’re an experienced programmer who wants to build production-quality Web applications and services with ASP.NET 2.0, this book is the deepest, most practical tutorial you can find.

Randy Connolly introduces today’s best practices for every facet of ASP.NET 2.0 development. He illuminates ASP.NET 2.0 Web server control architecture, sophisticated user interface capabilities, and navigation controls. He presents systematic, practical coverage of ASP.NET 2.0 data integration, state management, personalization, and more.

As with all books in the Prentice Hall Core Series, Core Internet Application Development with ASP.NET 2.0 focuses on solving serious problems with professional-quality code. With practical insights into everything from data binding to security, this is the ASP.NET 2.0 book you’ve been searching for: a definitive guide to building industrial-strength Web solutions.

This Book Delivers

• Best practices for architecting and implementing state-of-the-art Web applications and services
• Expert insight into the entire ASP.NET development process, from design through deployment
• Hundreds of professional-quality code examples, including complete applications and business objects
• In-depth coverage of the latest ASP.NET features, including master pages, new data source controls, and ASP.NET AJAX (a.k.a. “Atlas”)

Every Core Series Book

Demonstrates practical techniques used by professional developers
Features robust, thoroughly tested sample code and realistic examples
Focuses on the cutting-edge technologies you need to master today
Provides expert advice that will help you build superior software

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Not a classic ASP.NET 2.0 intro book
Read the book from start to the end. Not to be harsh, this is not a good book for the beginners, nor for experienced users. For beginners, the book doesn’t explain some of the topic clearly, such as Page Life cycle. The way the book explain this topic might scare readers away from learning ASP.NET; for medium level programmers, this book doesn’t touch any of the advanced topic, such as building custom controls. Also for the amount of knowledge covered in the book, the size should be reduced to 500 pages. If you want to learn ASP.NET, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0, Pro ASP.NET 2.0, and ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem-Design-Solution are the three definitive books.

4 Stars Good for learning the important pieces
I recommend this book to experienced developers, although the topics are discussed clearly enough that a patient novice developer will gain much. Because the book assumes the reader has knowledge of basic web technologies, those with a background in earlier versions of ASP.NET or other web development platforms will get the most out of it.

The approach the author took was to give the reader the most pertinent information to bring him or her up to speed quickly. Only the most useful information is presented–which is why the book contains the word “core” in the title rather than “complete.” For example, when presenting a new control to the reader, the author discusses only the most-used features of the control. Often, he will mention other, less-used features so the reader knows they are available, but will not provide examples or provide much detail over these non-core features. If you are looking for an exhaustive reference of all the features of ASP.NET 2.0, this is not the book for you. However, if you are looking to learn ASP.NET 2.0, this book will cover 90% or so of the features you will likely use for any project.

The typical presentation of an aspect of ASP.NET 2.0 in this book is to provide a brief description, a screenshot or two, and an explanation of what kind of situations are appropriate for its use. Most items also include example code, with additional screenshots. I especially appreciated that the examples were simple, but clearly demonstrated the use of the item they were explaining. The code for the examples was presented in its entirety, but use of bold text on the pieces being demonstrated made the examples very understandable and helped me go through them more quickly than the typical code example. Also the use of labeling in the screenshots made it easy to see the results of what each code example was doing.

Overall, this was a very efficient way to quickly learn about each feature of ASP.NET 2.0. The book was a surprisingly fast read for a technical manual. Right at the point where I became bogged down with too much detailed information about controls, data sources, etc, the author took a step back and began discussing higher-level topics such as contemporary software design and the appropriate use of layers or tiers when designing a web application. Although I have had experience designing multi-layered or tiered web applications, this higher-level discussion was nice because all the details of ASP.NET 2.0 were very fresh in my mind. I was able to think about application design in a new light now that I understood the capabilities of ASP.NET 2.0.

The book’s last few chapters step away from the web applications themselves and discuss the “other” things pertaining to ASP.NET 2.0, such as web services, security within web applications, and deployment of applications. These are useful in that they give a slightly more complete set of information on developing internet applications with ASP.NET 2.0.

Summary -

If you are looking for a way to quickly get up to speed in ASP.NET 2.0, without getting bogged down in too many details, I highly recommend this book.

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Beginning ASP NET Databases Using VB NET

What is this book about?

For a web site to offer its users an experience that improves on that of newspapers or textbooks, it needs a way to change the information it contains dynamically - and that means it needs access to a data source. Through the combination of ASP.NET and ADO.NET, Microsoft provides everything necessary to access, read from, and write to a database, and then allow web users to view and manipulate that data from a web browser. In this book, we’ll show you how it’s done.

What does this book cover?

Packed with clear explanations and hands-on examples, Beginning ASP.NET Databases contains everything you’ll need on your journey to becoming a confident, successful programmer of data-driven web sites. In particular, we’ll look at:

• Connecting to common data sources, including SQL Server and MS Access
• Reading data with data reader and dataset objects
• Creating and deleting records, and editing data
• Displaying data with ASP.NET’s web server controls
• Writing and using stored procedures from VB.NET code
• Placing your data access code in reusable class libraries

The book closes with a real-world case study that consolidates the tutorials throughout the book into a practical result.

Who is this book for?

To use this book, you need a computer running either Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional Edition. The examples it contains will not run on Windows XP Home Edition.

This book is for people who have some experience of programming ASP.NET with Visual Basic .NET, are familiar with the operation of the .NET Framework, and want to learn how to use ASP.NET to make data-centric web applications. No prior knowledge of database programming is necessary.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Easy to follow
I have enough programming books that if weighed would weigh as much as a car.

I love this book.

The best part is that I can read it and follow the examples without having to sit at my computer.

The key word in the title is beginning. I have found it to be a great foundation book on its subject matter.

The authors should get an atta boy for this one.

5 Stars Great for Beginers… Good reference
This was my first book on .NET and I think it was a great tool to help me learn the basics of database programming. After building on the basic concepts it goes on into deeper knowledge and real world examples. This book was the only resource I used to not only get started but to continue using as my desktop reference. The book has lots of examples and it’s very detailed on the explanations. The authors have a clear and concise style that does not overwhelm the reader with extremely complex details. I recommend this book if you are a beginer on ASP.NET and I also think it serves as a good refenrece.

2 Stars Mixed Bag
My guess is that the reviewers who gave this text five stars did not actually attempt to reproduce working versions of all the examples. The quality of this book is mixed, as is common for the multiple-author Wrox editions. Some of the chapters are exceptional, and deserve five stars, having clear and logical instruction as well as examples that work as described. Chapters 5 and 6 are examples of the best authoring, and it appears that the author with last name Ferracchiati has written some of the best chapters in the book. Other chapters are nightmarish excursions through incomplete and poorly explained code, with examples that don’t work, and with files missing in the downloaded code. Examples of such chapters are 7, 9 and 10, with chapter 10 being so incredibly bad that it has permanently soured my outlook toward this text. To summarize - there is some useful information in the book, but don’t pay more than a few dollars for it, and don’t buy it if your own time is worth more than a few dollars per hour.

3 Stars Good For Additional Practice
I’ve recently finished building all the examples in this book from scratch, using both EditPlus and VS.NET2K3 on my workstation, and storing and testing the apps on my Win2K3/SQL2K server. Once I got the security settings and connection strings figured out, I was able to get all the examples to run properly.

This book can provide good additional practice for beginners to ASP.NET, after you’ve been through an introductory book, like Wrox’s “Beginning ASP.NET with VB.NET 2003″ (ISBN 0764557076), or it’s C#.NET 2K3 equivalent, ISBN 0764557084.

The book is OK as far as it goes, but you have to get all the way up to Chapter 11 before they show you an example of an object-oriented application that interacts with a relational database. And even then, they don’t run through all the code in the book, they just give you the simplest files and tell you to download the rest of the example application from the web site.

One big hole in the book is that it really should have a chapter on setting up and testing connections to various databases under various server scenarios. It’s just a personal opinion, but I’ve always felt that it’s important to run a test app that tests the database connection and read/update functions before you start to build anything else.

Another drawback is that both the Beginning books, and this database book, have examples of ASP.NET server controls which don’t quite render properly in any browser except Internet Explorer. Each of these books should have a section that discusses how to test in various browsers, and how to tweak the code so the pages will render properly in Firefox, Safari, etc.

One big advantage of this particular book, however, is that they don’t rely on any server controls that are available only in the Web Matrix design environment and only seem to run in a Web Matrix server. This is one big flaw in the beginning books.

It’s probably also important to note that no combination of the beginning books and/or this book will really get you quite up to the skill level you need to have in order to do real ASP.NET database application development. Once you’re ready to start doing that, Wrox’s “Professional ASP.NET 1.1″ (ISBN 0764558900) is an excellent reference source. It’s not a tutorial, but it’s got pretty comprehensive coverage of most of the issues you’ll need to know about. Go through one of the Beginning books, then do this book, then get the Pro book and you’ll be ready to start developing.

2 Stars Frustrating Experience
I’ve been reading some of the other reviews on this page, and I can’t believe they are reading the same book. I have had problems running the code in several of these exercises, particularly with any code that has the DataGrid control. I’ve also noticed I’m not the only with this problem, since I have browsed the Wrox website forums and found others who were having the same problems with the code. I even submitted code from Chapter 3, page 67 to Microsoft Support, after receiving nothing but a blank page when I ran it. Microsoft noticed that the code was MISSING a required clause! The exercise in question is the FIRST exercise in the book. If the first exercise you attempt fails even though you made no typos, it’s frustrating. I can easily see a novice programmer getting discouraged and giving up. I’m an experienced ASP programmer and even I was getting fed up!

I’ve been a big fan of other books by Wrox, but this one leaves a lot to be desired.

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Programming WCF Services Programming

Written by Microsoft software legend Juval Lowy, “Programming WCF Services” is the authoritative introduction to Microsoft’s new, and some say revolutionary, unified platform for developing service-oriented applications (SOA) on Windows. Relentlessly practical, the book delivers insight, not documentation, to teach developers what they need to know to build the next generation of SOAs.

After explaining the advantages of service-orientation for application design and teaching the basics of how to develop SOAs using WCF, the book shows how you can take advantage of built-in features such as service hosting, instance management, asynchronous calls, synchronization, reliability, transaction management, disconnected queued calls and security to build best in class applications. “Programming WCF Services” focuses on the rationale behind particular design decisions, often shedding light on poorly-documented and little-understood aspects of SOA development. Developers and architects will learn not only the “how” of WCF programming, but also relevant design guidelines, best practices, and pitfalls. Original techniques and utilities provided by the author throughout the book go well beyond anything that can be found in conventional sources.

Based on experience and insight gained while taking part in the strategic design of WCF and working with the team that implemented it, “Programming WCF Services” provides experienced working professionals with the definitive work on WCF. Not only will this book make you a WCF expert, it will make you a better software engineer. It’s the Rosetta Stone of WCF.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The WCF Bible
Absolutely the best book I’ve read on Windows Communication Foundation. A must have book. Juwal explain every single WCF detail in a very well simple form but this don’t break the value of this excellent book. A book written for beginners, intermediate and professional WCF developers.

Well done, Juwal.

5 Stars Another great one from Juval
I’ve been a fan of Juval ever since I took an al-day seminar with him at DevConnections a few years ago. He’s a great teach and a great writer. However, he is not for beginners.

5 Stars Very Thorough Reference On WCF
WCF is one of the four major application programming interfaces introduced as part of .NET Framework 3.0. With its enormous power and flexibility, WCF has a very complex and multilayered architecture. After reading some nice overviews on WCF and even writing some simple code with out-of-box facilities provided by WCF, one may get a misleading impression of it being simple and straightforward. Once to delve into real world programming, you would be exposed to huge number of issues and complexities that in most cases may not be overcome without thorough understanding of the subject.

Juval Lowy’s book does an outstanding job ob systematically and thoroughly uncovering practically all aspects of WCF programming. Not only it presents a simple to understand architectural picture of WCF in general and various architectural and functional subsystems, but also abandons with practical and thorough explanations of the details of virtually all aspects of WCF.

This book is not a beginner book. For starting with WCF I would recommend Michele Bustamante’s book “Learning WCF”. Lowy’s book is a thorough reference on WCF that soon becomes your primary source of information.

I would like also to note that it does not seem to be the intent of the book to reflect on all internal plumbing of WCF, which realistically needs lot of experimentation. You may find Justin Smith’s book as a good supplement to Lowy’s book on custom channels and behaviors.

5 Stars Well done Juval!
This book was actually my first exposure to WCF. Many people describe it as a more advanced WCF book than the other more basic ones out there. Although I tend to agree that it is more advanced than other books, I disagree with the implicit suggestion that you shouldn’t start with this book if your a beginner. I generally gain better command over a subject by going deep enough to understand what’s going on, and what capabilities I have at my disposal.

“Programming WCF Services” does just that. It starts with the simple basics which is important for the novice. But as soon as you understand the basics, you yearn for much more deeper content, which follows in the chapters to come. Although I wish the book would have had a chapter devoted completely to Channels, the overall depth of the book is enough for most use cases that WCF developers will encounter.

Something i really like about Juval Lowy’s writing specifically is that he walks you through the thought process of the underlying problem. He shows you the different options that are possible, and then gives his final opinion, thus leaving you satisfied as to why a particular methodology is better than another.

If Juval would consider a 2nd edition, I would recommend a chapter on custom Channel development, and RESTful web services.

All in all, a great book for beginning and intermediate WCF service developers.

5 Stars Very good book about WCF.
I have previously read Juval Lowy’s Programming .NET Components and it was one of few excellent books which gave deeper explanation about .NET. This book is as great as that one and only one of the few books giving a good explanation about WCF and its internals.

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Building Web Solutions with ASP NET and ADO NET

Most Web applications follow a simple “3F” pattern: fetch, format, and forward data to the browser. With this in-depth guide, developers can take their Web design and programming skills to the next level to build more complex Web pages, applications, and services. The book demonstrates the advanced data-access capabilities of ADO.NET and the powerful page-creation capabilities of ASP.NET, plus how to employ code reusability, pagelets, code-behind, server-side controls, and other time-saving techniques.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Warning-Expert book, No VB.NET code, all C#
This is not an intermediate book:

The author knows what he is talking about. Perhaps he made it overly complex, he goes in to great detail and some of it is overkill. I started reading it and I knew that I needed to get another book that simplifies some of the subjects and I would use this book when I need to get to the gritty details. I was rather disappointed that there was no Visual Basic .NET code. The author clearly is a C# expert. I may change my review once I read the whole book, I am sure I will appreciate his thoroughness once I have a grasp of ASP.NET.

4 Stars For Advanced users
If you are looking for a beginners book, this is not for you. This is for intermediate to Advance level users. The text is explained very well - gives you a feeling that the author not only knows the subject but also knows how to teach it which is what you want in a book.

5 Stars This book deserves 6 stars !
In depth discussion on most important features of ADO.NET and ASP.NET. Buy it and enjoy it if you are a professional developer. Don’t buy it if you don’t know anything.
It’s a shame to give this book less than 5 stars.

5 Stars Extremely good book for Intermediate to Advanced readers
This is quite a good book on real techniques to solve real problems. It’s still going to be useful if you use for you’re development third party controls and frameworks, you still will find valuable information inside. I wouldn’t recommend it for the very beginner that wants a Learn-This-In-1-Hour book (and keep yourself in the ignorance :-)).

For anybody else with certain degree of familiarity with the .Net environment, the book is going to be extremely useful.

2 Stars Disjointed, Inarticulate, Incomplete
It’s pretty clear that the author (Dino Esposito) knows the subject–he just can’t seem to put it down on paper.

He has the habit of raising a question at the beginning of a paragraph, working his way around it for several semi-relevant sentences before finally saying what he means. It always left me thinking, “For Pete’s sake, if that’s what you wanted to say, then why didn’t you just say it?” Or worse yet, he’ll just meander off without ever really resolving the question at hand.

There are some good ideas in the book. In fact, it’s really more of a loosely organized collection of things you can do with ASP.NET and ADO.NET. Unfortunately there are few concrete examples so you are going to need another book if you want more than an overview of developing .NET web apps. The book could more accurately be titled, “Some things you could do with ASP.NET and ADO.NET if you had a good book to work with”. But this isn’t it. Sigh.

And a little pet peeve for books from Microsoft Press: OK, you don’t have to focus on non-MS technology, but geeze, don’t pretend they don’t exist. The chapter on “Interoperability” discussed *only* COM/ADO.

So, keep looking if you are really interested in “Building Web Solutions with APS.NET and ADO.NET.”

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