Professional ASP.NET 2.0

ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming : Problem - Design - Solution (Programmer to Programmer)

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ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks

Format: Paperback
Author: David Yack
ReleaseDate: 30 May, 2006
Publisher: Wrox
Rating:

Except for the Name, Very Valuable Stuff
Hacks or hacking as used in this book title relates to hot shot, sophisticated, creative coding rather than in the bad sense of hacking into someone's system. I think there needs to be a new word invented.

The book is written by a series of guys who have been working for years with Microsoft's ASP. NET. They probably started off with ASP. NET on the first version. They've been through each version up to now trying things, working around things, finding ways to make it do what they needed. Being Microsoft MVP's (Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals) the ASP. NET development team listens to them somewhat more than they would listen to the average fellow sending them an e-mail.

Any these guys developed these hacks, or creative solutions, or cool code snippets, or undocumented features and a lot of the ones they developed in earlier versions have made it into the standard code. Here is what they have discovered with ASP. NET 2. 0.

This is not a book for beginners, but if you are up to intermediate status here are a bunch of things that will help you make your next project better. These hacks do things that these guys have found desirable. You're likely to find a good idea or two as well.

Want to expand your development skills?
As explained inside the
well-known Wiley (Wrox) red covers, some people call them 'creative solutions'. With the word 'Hacks' in the title, this may throw a few people a 'curve' ball, as it were. Some people call them
Tips and Tricks. In this writer's opinion, 'Creative Solutions' is a much
better name for what's inside. The code explained starts by showing how v2. 0 of ASP. Net took some of the 'hacks' or
'creative solutions' for 1. 1 and incorporated the obvious needs inside v2. 0. Then, the writers take what's given
in v2. 0, and extend that much further, finding the 'shortcomings' and extending the possibilities much further.

A few pages in the beginning, along with an entire chapter (16) deals with Master Pages, one of the more colossal
additions to ASP. Net 2. 0, and rightly so, having its origins in Paul Wilsons Template pages, back in the 1. x days. Again,
this book takes a quick look at how to build Master pages, along with Content pages, and then shows how to extend
and nest them. But, then, this is only a start.

When reading this book we are taken through the steps of adding client side scripting to GridViews (and much more),
creating your own RSS viewer control, through Cache, Viewstate, Security and Deployment hacks/tips, and finally ends up with HTTP Handlers and Modules.

This book is not a beginner's book, by any means, but it can take an intermediate or even advanced
developer and really help him/her get to the next 'level'. Looking back, it's just as much as an 'eye-opener' type of book. Yes, it shows code and explains how to do a whole lot of new programming, but just as much, it expands your horizons, enabling you to not only see those horizons, but realize then, how to get past them.

If I were to find one fault with the book, it would be that 90% of the code samples in the book are with C#. There are a few
VB. Net samples sprinkled here and there, but coming from a VB. Net development background, I did find this a shortcoming.
However, if that's all that I could find as a 'con', the 'pros' far outweigh them.