Essential ASP.NET with Examples in Visual Basic .Net

I have about 5 books (mostly ebook format) on ASP.Net from the step by step to advanced and Fritz's book is an eye opener. Most of the ASP.NET books fail to mention why some quirks/details with ASP.Net the way they are. EAN is like a pointer and half way through the book, I had so many 'aha' moments that I was left wondering WHO IS THIS guy? Don't expect explanations about variables and such (go refer ASP.Net Web Developers Gude pub. by Syngress) and thankfully so. You will have a better understanding of ASP.Net by the end of the book than syntax which you would be thankful for when you start writing ASP.Net applications in real world. I have yet to finish the book but I couldn't wait to put in my 2 cents about this book. A definite must on your bookshelf (www.safaribooksonline.com)!!!

There are so many books out about ASP.NET it can be a very difficult task to choose one. To me there seems to be two types of books. One is the example intensive (at times over laden) book. The other is the "how it works" type of book. The market seems to be flooded with example intensive books, but appears light in the "how it works" type. This book is a fantastic "how it works" book. It has good examples but is not drowning in them. The book's strength is its explanations of ASP.NET core topics, and the little tips and tricks that readers will pick up along the way.This book is well written and flows nicely. Without a doubt it is an excellent book for beginners and intermediate levels, but I would bet that even advanced users would pick up tips and tricks from the book. SummaryChapter 1: ArchitectureThis chapter explains the basic new architecture behind ASP.NET. Compilation vs. Interpretation, Code-behind, new Page architecture, Shadow Copying, Directives, and new Intrinsic Objects (HttpRequest, HttpResponse, etc) are a few of the topics covered. Chapter 2: Web Forms This chapter is all about Web Forms. ViewState, HtmlControls, WebControls, and Events are some of the items discussed. One section I liked the best was the "Day in the life of a page". It explained the step by step events that occur during a page's lifetime in a very clear and concise manner.Chapter 3: Configuration This is an excellent chapter that discusses the new XML based configuration in ASP.NET. Web.Config, Machine.Config, and configuration hierarchy are examined. processModel and other elements are also discussed.Chapter 4: HTTP Pipeline This chapter goes over the HTTP Pipeline, and all the actions that take place each time a requests comes in. It goes into great coverage of how that request is routed through the architecture. It also goes over Context, Applications, Custom Handlers, and a few other related topics. This is a great chapter.Chapter 5: Diagnostics and Error Handling This chapter shows us how to get out of the classic response.write method of debugging ASP apps by examining the new diagnostic and error handling capabilities of ASP.NET. Page Tracing, Application-level Tracing, Error Handling, and Unhandled Exceptions are all discussed. Chapter 6: Validation This is a chapter that explains form validation (client and server-side), validation control architecture, and the validation controls. Chapter 7: Data Binding This chapter starts by explaining the fundamentals of binding data to controls, and then goes into IDataReader Binding, DataSet Binding, and picking when to use a DataSet vs DataReader. The chapter ends by discussing templated controls (DataGrid, Repeater, and DataList). Chapter 8: Custom Controls This is the largest chapter of the book (69 pages). This chapter covers custom control fundamentals, state management consideration when designing custom controls, composite controls, and user controls. Designer integration with VS.Net as well as validatio

Excellent ASP.NET Book. My compliments to the author. No .net marketing, clear language and excellent chapters on configuration,validation,and especially custom handlers.My library is mostly Wrox, but lately their books lost a lot of quality. I will take an extra look at .NET Developer Series from Addison-Wesley from now on

If you want to know how ASP.NET works so that you can get it to do everything you want it to do, buy this book. Fritz is great at explaining things (probably why he is a DevelopMentor instructor). Of my ASP.NET books, I only ever refer to two:1. ASP.NET Unleashed: great for a code sample whenever you need one.2. Essential ASP.NET: Whenever I can't figure out what I'm doing isn't working or if I need a better explanation of a feature, this book works great.

I have over 35 books on ASP.NET. If there is ONE BOOK you should get, it is this one. The approach is both unique and authoritative. Although the code examples are in VB.NET, I write only in C# and did not find this to be a handicap. It covers topics not covered in any other ASP.NET books, walking you through both ASP.NET architecture and application implementation details. The architecture discussion is important as it gives you insight into the RIGHT way to accomplish something in ASP.NET. For example, I had a requirement that in classic ASP would have required "including" some code on every page and a reference to that code or (more dangerous) writing a C++ ISAPI filter. The architecture discussion wasn't a step by step "you have this specific problem, here is how to solve it", even better it gave me the information to solve it myself by creating a request filter in global.aspx.cs (in about 5 minutes!!).