Introduction

If you can force yourself to think back 10 years, think about the proliferation of technology in just that short period of time. Back in the "good ole" days, you could walk down a busy city street, and you probably wouldn't see anyone talking on a cell phone. You wouldn't see people busily tapping at their PDAs. You definitely didn't see anyone sitting in an Internet café using a Tablet PC to send hand-sketched application designs halfway around the world to a remote development team.

Connectivity between applications and application components used to be something that required the use of extremely skilled, highly expensive development efforts. Sure, we had technologies like CORBA, but they had limited use.

Today, connectivity itself has become so ubiquitous that it is demanded. When people turn on their PDA in an Internet-enabled coffee shop, they fully expect that they will be able to connect to the Internet from there. If they don'tthey will complain to the owner. When people flip open their brand new cellular phone, not only do they expect it to take photographs, but they expect to be able to upload their photos to a central location to be shared with friends, family, or the entire Internet. They expect that they can download ringtones, games, even music and videos. If they can'tthey want their money back.

This same demand for connectivity, performance, and modern features can be found in desktop software and web software as well. People want their applications to follow the "It Just Works" principle. They should be able to beat on and otherwise abuse that application without fear of retribution in the form of lost or corrupted data. Users want their Windows applications to work properly whether they're connected to the Internet or not. They want their web applications to be more responsive than they used to be, they want them to look great, and they want them to run fast, and they want them to remember what they like, what they don't like, and who they are.

In short, the demands modern users are placing on the quality, features, and functionality of the applications they use have never been more strict. Programmers today must create some of the most powerful applications ever written, and they need to do it quickly, reliably, and cheaply.

This book will take the developer through an in-depth exploration of the features, power, and capabilities of Visual C# .NET 2005, the latest and most powerful version of the C# language running on the .NET Framework 2.0.

Among many other things, by reading this book you will

• Learn the fundamentals of the C# language and the core features of the .NET Framework 2.0, such as object-oriented programming, generics, and other basics such as delegates and event-driven programming.

• Learn how to work with data in many forms from many sources using ADO.NET 2.0, even how to write stored procedures for SQL Server 2005 in C#!

• Create Windows Forms applications with rich, highly responsive user interfaces.

• Deploy Windows Forms applications from the web or anywhere else with the click of a button.

• Create Windows Forms applications that update themselves automatically over the Internet by checking for new releases and patches.

• Learn how to create ASP.NET 2.0 applications and the new features that come with them.

• Utilize master pages, themes, and skins to create a consistent look and feel throughout your site and even provide the ability for users to select their own style theme.

• Use Web Parts and Web Part Pages to create dynamic, user-controllable content pages that contain information and functionality targeted to the specific user or the user's security level.

• Use the new Provider model in ASP.NET to create an application that can authenticate users, store user role membership, store user profile data, and user personalization information (such as Web Part preferences) in SQL Server 2005 in 15 minutes or less!

• Use client callbacks to create highly interactive, Ajax-style interfaces in ASP.NET 2.0.

• Learn how to create custom, reusable ASP.NET controls.

• Learn how to create and consume web services.

• Use remoting and/or COM+ to create distributed, connected applications.

This book is crammed full of information on how to get you up to speed on the newest technology. It also provides you with practical application of the technology. As we all know, applying a technology just because it's new or interesting isn't necessarily the right thing to do. As you read this book, you will be introduced to the new technology from the ground up (learning to walk before you can run), as well as learning where that technology makes sense and when it should be applied.

You might find some of the earlier chapters to be somewhat of a review if you have already been working with C# 2005. However, many of the later chapters in the book build on technologies and techniques introduced in earlier chapters, making this book ideally suited to being read from start to finish.