ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies

Did you volunteer to create a Web site for the softball team? Is it time to take your small business to the next level and let your customers shop online? Well, you can relax! ASP.NET 3.5 makes creating a dynamic site faster and cleaner than ever before, and ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies makes it easier.

First, you’ll get an introduction to all the tools and terminology you need to understand ASP.NET. If you’ve used earlier versions of ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer, you can probably skip that part and jump right into what’s new in 3.5. You'll make friends with LINQ and SQL, create sites in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express, and much more. Before you know it, you’ll discover how to:

Integrate data, track shopping cart contents, and whisk away bugs
Create user interfaces with easy navigation
Use the ListView control for sophisticated formatting
Write LINQ queries
Add a table to a database
Create an event handler
Take advantage of the drag 'n' drop feature that lets you write less code
Put all the features to work to develop dynamic Web applications

The softball team is going to love that Web site, and your customers might enjoy shopping on your site so much that you’ll have to expand your business to fill all the orders! We can’t promise that, of course, but we’re pretty sure that ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies will make creating Web sites easier and a lot more fun.

Customer Reviews:

A great enjoyable read

By Michael - March 14, 2008

I am an experienced developer so I only expected to skim over the book to get familiar with any of the new asp.net 3.5 features. I found myself reading every word of every page because the book was actually "entertaining". The writing is very smooth and easy to understand. You feel as if a really good teacher who knows how to relate to people is talking to you.

I was also surprised how deep the book was able to go into each subject. For example Linq is a very complicated subject yet the book does contain enough examples for you to use it in the real world.

The Right Author, the right approach

By James Forbes "Simple Programmer" - April 29, 2008

I almost didn't by the ASP.NET 3.5 for Dummies. Then I noticed that it was a different author than ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies and I thought I would give it a look. Bill Hatfield wrote the 'Dummies' book on the previous version and while I found him to be very knowledgeable, I got frustrated because I was trying to learn how to use Visual Studio with ASP.NET and his book didn't provide much help. Ken Cox however "gets it". He wrote the book for use with Visual Studio and by the end of Chapter 4 you're already using AJAX with no difficulty! By chapter 7 you're delving into LINQ! Ken's approach is intelligent and his style works both for the beginner as well as those more seasoned in ASP.NET. Excellent book!

Rave Review Warranted

By M. J. Ryan - December 10, 2008

This book is huge value for money!

It has taken me seven weeks to work my way through it. ASP.Net 3.5 is a very broad topic, and so to give it the `For Dummies' treatment would have been quite challenging, and required quite some dedication by the author, Ken Cox.

Quite apart from the book, owners get access to a website with downloadable examples for every chapter in VB or C#. There is also a forum on this website where Ken will assist you, should you have problems with the examples. I can attest to receiving assistance over the weekend!

By the end of the book:
* You will have some familiarity with all of the new v.3.5 controls, AJAX, Linq, consuming object data like RSS feeds, XML, video, Flash, etc.
* You will have been introduced to the starter kits, developed a shopping cart, and been given a thorough grounding in debugging and error trapping.

The book concludes with a discussion on deploying to a hosted site, and then ties... read more