Introduction

Overview

The beginning of Web development dates back ten years. Since then, numerous technologies have crossed our lives at different speeds, leaving a variety of memories. We had meteors like ActiveX Documents and vivid stars like Active Server Pages (ASP). ASP in particular, I believe, marked the watershed; it was introduced around 1997. ASP made it clear that real-world Web development was possible only through a rich and powerful server-side programming model.

Just as Microsoft Visual Basic did for Microsoft Windows development, ASP provided a set of server tools to build dynamic applications quickly and effectively and showed the way ahead. ASP.NET is the culmination of Web development technologies that have rapidly followed one another over the past ten years one building on another, and each filling the gaps left by its predecessor. As a result, ASP.NET is currently the most technologically advanced, feature-rich, and powerful platform for building distributed applications transported by the HTTP protocol.

The more you work with ASP.NET, the more you realize that even more is needed. ASP.NET simplifies a number of tasks and presents itself as a sort of programming paradise, especially for developers coming from classic ASP. ASP.NET 1.1 only whetted the appetite of the developer community. Thus, after the first months of working with and assessing ASP.NET 1.1, members of the developer community started asking and wishing for more in fact, much more.

ASP.NET 2.0 is a major upgrade to the platform, even though it doesn't introduce any new or revolutionary programming paradigm to learn. At first sight, there's no radically new approach to code design and implementation and there's no new syntax model to become familiar with. Nonetheless, ASP.NET 2.0 is a fundamental milestone in the Microsoft Web development roadmap.

Reworked and enhanced as a development platform, ASP.NET 2.0 makes new practices emerge as best practices. Its new programming techniques require attention from architects and lead developers, and its new system features provide native solutions to known issues with earlier versions.

Today, programming ASP.NET applications means becoming familiar with all techniques available and possible, no matter which version of the platform you're actually using. This book covers the state of the art in Web programming with Microsoft .NET technologies. You'll find it useful no matter which version of ASP.NET you use, with each topic covered in a top-down approach from the broader perspective of the feature, down to the implementation and programming details of a particular ASP.NET version.

A book that attempts to detail state-of-the-art ASP.NET programming practices can't do that in fewer than 2000 pages. Therefore, we cover ASP.NET 2.0 in two books: Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference and Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics. People who buy both books will get a complete reference and programmer's guide to ASP.NET and related technologies such as ADO.NET, mobile applications, and Web services. People who buy only one of the books get coverage of either fundamental topics or more advanced ASP.NET topics.

This book provides in-depth coverage of the ASP.NET fundamentals: the HTTP runtime, security, caching, state management, pages, controls, and data binding and data access.