Beginning ASP.NET 1.0 with Visual Basic.NET

What is this book about?

ASP.NET 1.0 is the final release of Microsoft''s Active Server Pages (ASP). It is a powerful server-based technology designed to create dynamic, interactive, HTML pages for web sites and corporate intranets. ASP.NET is a core element of Microsoft''s exciting .NET vision, building on the strengths of the .NET Framework to provide many new features not seen in previous versions of ASP.

This book, entirely revised and updated for the final release, will provide you with a step-by-step introduction to ASP.NET using VB.NET, with plenty of worked examples to help you to gain a deep understanding of what ASP.NET is all about, and how you can harness it to build powerful web applications.

What does this book cover?

In this book, you will learn how to

• Create basic ASP.NET pages with VB .NET
• Understand the concepts of Object Oriented Programming
• Work with data and XML
• Debug and handling errors in your code
• Use ASP.NET Server Controls
• Create user controls and components
• Explore the world of Web services
• Optimize performance
• Secure your application

Who is this book for?

This book is aimed at relatively inexperienced web builders who are looking to enrich their sites with dynamically-generated content, and want to learn how to start building web applications using ASP.NET. Developers who have a little experience with previous versions of ASP (and are looking to move over to ASP.NET), may also find this book helpful in getting a simple grasp on what ASP.NET is, what it does, and how it can be used. Experience of basic HTML is required, but previous experience of ASP or VBScript is not essential. We''ll be teaching the basics of VB .NET in this book, so prior experience of the language is not required.

What you need to know

This book is for beginners who have no previous experience of, ASP, VB, XML, object-oriented programming, or the .NET Framework. A little knowledge of HTML is useful, but by no means essential. All the concepts you need in order to create dynamic ASP.NET web sites are presented and explained in full.

What you will learn from this book

This book will teach you how to build tailored ASP.NET web sites from the ground up. It covers the following broad topics (see the book''s introduction for a more detailed explanation):

The early part of the book is dedicated to familiarizing you with the anatomy and basic functionality of HTML, XML, ASP.NET, the .NET Framework, and Visual Basic .NET. It progresses to look at the way in which they can be used together to create flexible web sites.

The second part of the book introduces the concept of object-oriented programming which is crucial to maximizing your returns from .NET. Ideas are explained in detail with many programmatic examples and real-world analogies.

Having laid the groundwork we then progress to discussing the technologies and techniques that ASP.NET can draw upon to increase its functionality. Including ADO.NET for data source access, Web Services for inter-website communication and Server Controls for facilitating code maintenance and reuse.

The book concludes by considering the ways in which you can optimize your ASP.NET sites to increase their speed, security and robustness; as well as giving detailed advice on how to debug your code when things go wrong.

Rob Birdwell makes his home in Corvallis, Oregon along with his wife and three beautiful children. He works at Hewlett-Packard and moonlights as a musician, composer, and songwriter. He first became interested in programming when he discovered he could make a machine play one of his musical melodies. His current interests include all facets of .NET technology and especially the C# language. His hobbies include swimming tennis and playing his trumpet in various ensembles.

Matt (.Matt) Butler is lead technical brain at Left Ear Design and specializes in .NET, Windows DNA, and Java. His interests include all things computer oriented (especially .NET and security), math, science, physics, spoken word, composing and improving introspective music.

Ollie Cornes has been working with the Internet and the Microsoft platform since the early 90's. In 1999 he co-founded a business-to-business Internet company and until recently was their Chief Technical Officer. When he's not working he spends his time devouring books on human potential and practicing Chinese internal martial arts, mediation and healing. He also juggles fore an d knives.

Chris Goode is currently an editor in the Microsoft team at Wrox. She lives in Birmingham, UK, and has a house full of old computers. She started programming at the age of 10 on her Atari 65XE, and has always enjoyed spending time with as much technology as possible. She has a degree in Mechanical Engineering, but decided that the engineering world wasn't for her. She is now back firmly in the world of computers, and finding that life at Wrox combines the fun stuff with the work stuff pretty well.

Gary Johnson is a transplanted hillbilly currently residing in Florida. He has programmed the Web since 1995 using a myriad of technologies (mostly VB/ASP/DNA type stuff prior to .NET). He likes spending time with the CoCo the dog or practicing the elusive art of photography.

John Kauffman first publications, some 20 years ago, explained sail trimming and tactics to yacht racers. He then returned to the printed page to describe his discovery of genomic sequence in plants that could be controlled by light. Today he splits his time between Asia and North America where he teaches and writes for Wrox about Microsoft technologies for connecting databases to the Web.

Ajoy Krishnamoorthy is a consultant with over 5 years of experience, working in Microsoft technologies such as ASP, VB, IIS, MTS and most recently .NET. He writes regularly for leading online publications. He received Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication and masters degree in System and information.

Juan T. Llibre is the Director of the Computer Sciences and Distance Education departments at Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Urena in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He has been a consultant to the Caribbean Export Development Agency and Dominican Republic's Central Bank and is currently the Technical Architect for the Caribbean Virtual University, a Distance Education consortium composed of 30 Caribbean Universities which will go online in 2002.

Christopher Miller began his development in the early1980's with Atari Basic, migrating to GW Basic, QuickBasic, and finally to Visual Basic, where he's lived and breathed since 1992. His current projects include an adaptive Intranet framework tool and other .NET-based Web Service applications. He holds a business degree from Pensacola Christian College of Florida, and all major Microsoft certifications (MCSE+I, MCSD, MCT, MCDBA).

Neil Raybould is working as a software developer and technical writer with cs/enlign, north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has given several presentations on ASP and ASP.NET related topics in the Pittsburgh area. Growing up in Emporia, Virginia, he used lawn mowing profits in 1981 to buy a Commodore VIC-20 His current interest have progressed to include .NET and Wireless applications.

David Sussman spent most of his professional life as a developer before realizing that writing was far more fun. He specializes in Internet and data access technologies and spends much of his time delving into beta technologies.

Chris Ullman is a Computer Science Graduate who worked for Wrox for six and half years before branching out on his own.