ASP.NET 4 Unleashed

The most comprehensive book on Microsoft’s new ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET 4 Unleashed covers all facets of ASP.NET development. Led by Microsoft ASP.NET program manager Stephen Walther, an expert author team thoroughly covers the entire platform.

The authors first introduce the ASP.NET Framework’s basic controls and show how to create common site-wide layouts and styles. Next, they cover all aspects of accessing, presenting, organizing, and editing data. You’ll find thorough and practical sections on building custom components and controls, providing effective site navigation, securing sites and applications, and much more. This book presents hundreds of realistic code examples, reflecting the authors’ unsurpassed experience with ASP.NET both inside and outside Microsoft.

Build interactive Web Forms, validate form data, and upload files
Provide interactive calendars, wizards, site maps, and other valuable features
Design efficient, maintainable sites with Master Pages and Themes
Build data-driven applications with database controls, ADO.NET data access components, QueryExtender, LINQ to SQL, and WCF Data Services
Generate charts on the fly with the new Chart Control
Extend ASP.NET with custom controls and reusable components
Create site registration and authentication systems that store membership data in SQL Server or Active Directory
Use URL Routing to build dynamism, flexibility, readability, and SEO-friendliness into your URLs
Improve performance and scalability with caching and preloading
Maintain state with cookies, cookieless session state, and profiles
Localize, configure, package, and deploy ASP.NET applications
Use the ASP.NET MVC Framework to improve agility, testability, speed to market, and extensibility
Retrofit existing ASP.NET applications with Ajax and build pure client-side Ajax web applications
Construct a complete ASP.NET 4 website from start to finish

Customer Reviews:

A review from a software Architect

By Glenn Witerski - January 16, 2011

Let me start by saying that I am Software Architect with over 30 years in the business, and have been through the entire MS suite. I am primarily an infrastructure type guy focused on frameworks, web services and back end database base optimizations using C# and some VB.Net. I spend 15-20% of my time on ASP.Net, and have been working with ASP.Net for 5 years now. Over that period of time I have collected the usual plethora of SAMS, WROX, O'Reilly, and Microsoft books on ASP.Net.

I have to agree with most of the other reviews that have been written about this book. At 1781 pages, it is a well laid out, complete, good looking reference text for a beginner or intermediate user only. It lacks the gory technical details for us subject matter expert types and leaves you wanting more. Because of all my other ASP.Net material, when I read this book I felt like I had seen all this material before and the authors did a poor job pointing out exactly what was NEW in ASP.Net 4.0. For... read more

A Great book that covers the wide frontier of ASP.NET

By Just me "Bill" - November 20, 2010

I have been working with ASP since the initial beta came out back in 1997. As anyone can attest, working with ASP was both exciting and extremely frustrating. ASP.NET changed all that.

From one release to another, Microsoft has continued to improve upon its flagship product for developing Web Pages. What once was a hair pulling experience, has now become a more rewarding adventure.

With the new Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4, Microsoft has once again raised the bar on things you can do with a web page.
Trying to get a handle on all of the changes can be a daunting task. Not to belittle Microsoft, but their documentation this go around is probably the worst that ever came out of Redmond.

But thanks to books like ASP.NET 4 Unleashed, that is no longer an insurmountable hurdle. What Kevin Hoffman and Nate Dudek have done to Stephen Walther's book is fantastic.

Continuing in the same vein, they run through the every part of ASP.NET... read more

Comprehensive ASP .NET Reference

By C J Marsh - December 7, 2010

I read this book recently from the perspective of an experienced .NET developer who hasn't done much web application development for a while. I found it to be an excellent resource on ASP.NET, but I suspect that it might be a bit overwhelming for the novice. For the intermediate to advanced developer however, it's an invaluable reference. The subject matter is addressed in a sensible manner, with good explanations and examples. The order in which areas of ASP.NET are covered works well, moving from basic to more complex topics. I would recommend either reading this from cover to cover, or just dipping into it as a reference - both are useful.

The reader is initially given a good introduction to the ASP .NET framework and how it works, moving to an explanation of some of the basic controls and how they should be used. The explanations and examples were good, and this section would probably be sufficient for a web developer to get up and running with the framework. Next, the... read more