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

The most up-to-date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you'll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 guides you through Microsoft's latest technology for building dynamic websites. You'll learn to build dynamic web pages quickly, with only basic prior knowledge of Visual Basic. Included is thorough coverage of ASP.NET, to guide you from your first steps to advanced techniques like querying databases from within a web page and performance-tuning your site.

This book includes "best practices" and comprehensive discussions about key database and XML principles, which are essential for you to become effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will enable you to build real-world websites immediately–rather than just scraping by with simplified coding practices. By the time you've finished this book, you will have mastered the core techniques and possess the necessary knowledge to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.

This book explores ASP.NET, which is a core part of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is not a single application—it’s actually a collection of technologies bundled into one marketing term. The .NET Framework includes languages such as C# and VB 2005, an engine for hosting programmable web pages and web services (ASP.NET), amodel for interacting with databases (ADO.NET), and a class library stocked with tools for everything from sending e-mail to encrypting a password. To master ASP.NET, you need to learn about each of these ingredients.

This book covers all these topics from the ground up. As a result, you’ll find yourself learning many techniques that will interest any .NET developer, even those who create Windows applications. For example, you’ll learn about component-based programming, you’ll discover structured error handling, and you’ll see how to access files, XML, and relational databases. You’ll also learn the key topics you need for web programming, such as state management, web controls, and web services. By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to create your own rich web applications and make them available over the Internet.

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.