David Sussman s Beginning Dynamic Websites with ASP.NET Web Matrix

David Sussman
with
James Greenwood
Alex Homer
Colt Kwong
John West

2003 Wrox Press

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First Printed January 2003

Published by Wrox Press Ltd
Arden House, 1102 Warwick Road,
Acocks Green, Birmingham, B27 6BH, UK
Printed in the United States
ISBN 1-86100-792-2

Trademark Acknowledgments

Wrox has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Wrox cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Authors
David Sussman
James Greenwood
Alex Homer
Colt Kwong
John West

Additional Material
David Barnes
Chris Hart

Technical Editors
Mankee Cheng
Chris Hart
Michelle Everitt

Commissioning Editor
David Barnes

Publisher
Dominic Shakeshaft

Project Manager
Darren Murphy

Managing Editor
Joanna Mason

Series Editor
John Collin

Technical Reviewers
Martin Beaulieu
John Collin
Slavomir Furman
Ben Galbraith
Jay Glynn
Brad Maiani
Johan Normen
Teri Radichel
Ranga Raghunathan
Larry Schoeneman
Scott Watermasysk

Production Coordinator
Sarah Hall

Cover Design
Natalie O'Donnell

Index
John Collin

Proofreader
Chris Smith

Music
Adequate 7
www.adequate7.co.uk

From David...

This book will teach you all the things you need to know to turn your design idea into a dynamic website. You will still need to bring the creativity, but you can leave the programming to us.

Over the course of this book, you'll build some powerful website features, but that's just the start. Almost all of the advanced, commercial websites you see today are based on principles you'll learn from this book – online magazines and newspapers, e-commerce sites, discussion forums, and games will all be within your grasp by the time you finish.

Want to provide an online news service? Then you'll need a database to store the stories, a login screen to update them, some pages to display the news to visitors, and maybe a web service to let other sites display your stories. It's all in here, and once you've had the idea, it will come together easily and quickly using Web Matrix as the tool for the development process.

Web Matrix is about community. Although it was developed by Microsoft employees, it really was a labor of love. I was talking to the Microsoft ASP.NET team as they were working on it in their spare time, and got the chance to play with some top-secret betas. I could tell they were onto something: fast, friendly, simple, and a price tag few could argue with – it was free!

It's come a long way since then, but at the core, it's still the same – a great tool that lets you do everything you want, but nothing you don't.

I hope you can say the same thing about my book!

David

About the Authors

David Sussman

David Sussman has spent the majority of his professional life as a developer, using both Unix-based and Microsoft-based products. After writing his first two books while in full time employment, he realized that being an author sounded more glamorous than being a programmer. The reality is somewhat different. He now spends most of his time writing books for Wrox Press, speaking at conferences, and playing with most beta products that Microsoft ships.

James Greenwood

James Greenwood is a technical architect and author based in West Yorkshire, England. He spends his days (and most of his nights) designing and implementing .NET solutions from Government knowledge-management systems to mobile integration platforms, all the while waxing lyrical on the latest Microsoft technologies. His professional interests include research into distributed interfaces, the automation of application development, and human-machine convergence.

When he can be prised away from the keyboard, James can be found out and about, indulging in his other great loves – British sports cars and Egyptology.

You can reach James at [e-mail].

Alex Homer

Alex Homer is a software developer and technical author living and working in the idyllic rural surroundings of the Derbyshire Dales in England. He came to computing late in life – in fact, while he was at school people still thought that the LED wristwatch was a really cool idea. Since then, he has obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics, and so, looked destined for a career painting computers. Instead, while not busy developing ASP components for Stonebroom Software (http://www.stonebroom.com), he prefers to install and play with the latest and flakiest beta code he can find – and then write about it. You can contact him at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

Colt Kwong

Colt Kwong is a Microsoft .NET MVP, software developer, technical writer, and addict of all things about .NET. He's one of the top posters and a moderator on the Microsoft official ASP.NET forums at http://www.asp.net/Forums/. He also contributes on other popular websites and newsgroups as well. He spends a great deal of his free time providing help to budding ASP.NET developers. He is a guest speaker for Microsoft Hong Kong TechEd and a freelancer for Microsoft Hong Kong. He's in the Winner's Circle for Microsoft's Asia Student .NET Online Challenge, earning perfect scores in advanced, intermediate, and basic levels of .NET, ASP.NET, XML web services, XML, Visual Basic .NET, Visual Studio .NET, and HailStorm. Moreover, he was also recognized as one of the Level 2 AspElite members and is a Moderator of AspFriends.com .

I would like to thank David Barnes, Darren Murphy, and the Wrox Editorial Team. Without their kindness, care, and support, I don’t think I could have completed this book in such a smooth way!

John West

John West is a Principal Consultant at Intellinet (www.intellinet.com), based out of Atlanta, Georgia. He specializes in leading Microsoft .NET application development efforts. Intellinet provides infrastructure and business intelligence solutions. Intellinet's Intelligent Enterprise integration solution helps clients to benefit from systems that meet current needs and can scale to future demands. Often, .NET applications become the glue to integrate the Intelligent Enterprise, which consists of networking, security, messaging, collaboration, custom applications, data, and mobility solutions.

When not working, he usually spends his time reading, hanging out with friends from church, and boating. John can be reached at [e-mail].