ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed is the most comprehensive book available on the Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5 Framework, covering all aspects of the ASP.NET 3.5 Framework--no matter how advanced.

 

This edition covers all the new features of ASP.NET 3.5. It explains Microsoft LINQ to SQL in detail. It includes a chapter on the two new data access controls introduced with the ASP.NET 3.5 Framework: ListView and DataPager. With its coverage of ASP.NET AJAX, this book shows you how to take advantage of Microsoft’s server-side AJAX framework to retrofit existing ASP.NET applications with AJAX functionality. It also demonstrates how to use Microsoft’s client-side AJAX framework to build the web applications of the future: pure client-side AJAX applications. All code samples are written in the C# programming language. (Visual Basic versions of all code samples are included on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book.)

 

• Take advantage of Microsoft’s new database query language, LINQ to SQL, to easily build database-driven web applications
• Learn how to use the new ListView and DataPager data access controls to build flexible user interfaces
• Take advantage of ASP.NET AJAX when building both server-side and client-side web applications
• Use the AJAX Control Toolkit to create auto-complete text fields, draggable panels, masked edit fields, and complex animations
• Design ASP.NET websites
• Secure your ASP.NET applications
• Create custom components
• Build highly interactive websites that can scale to handle thousands of simultaneous users
• Learn to build a complete ASP.NET 3.5 website from start to finish–the last chapter of the book includes a sample ASP.NET 3.5 web application written with LINQ to SQL and ASP.NET AJAX

 

CD-ROM includes all examples and source code presented in this book in both C# and Visual Basic.

 

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book
Comment: I just bought this book, I'm studying for the new 70-562 exam. I've gone through about 300 pages, and I'm astounded at the information. I've been programming in ASP.NET 4 years, and have picked up a lot along the way ("junkie"). Some people get on and say "I wanted to learn ASP.NET from scratch!!!" This book is not for that. This book, so far, covers everything incredibly well, and fills in any gaps you might have. I am confident this book will allow me to pass the exam. I'll update once I do. The downside is there a lot of forward references. So once again, this book is for people who really, already know ASP.NET. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to become a well-rounded ASP developer. Even though it has 1800 pages, the font is good, the information is clear, and it is extremely easy reading. It doesn't get bogged down and repetitive, but covers everything.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but many corrections needed
Comment: This book is massive with a lot of good information but there are many errors particularly linking the code to the sample output displayed.

I wasn't able to find the link to download the errata or submit suggestions for corrections. I should have checked this before purchasing the book as no book is perfect and downloading and annotating the book from the known corrections list is usually my first task prior to reading the book.

For a beginner, the errors could be seriously confusing while for the experienced developer they will be annoynances.

This book also has very poor end of chapter wrap-ups. There are no chapter review questions to assist the user in validating that the material has been understood and the summary that is provided is pitifully short and not at all helpful in summarizing the materials presented in the chapters.

SAMS needs to get their act together or their market vunrabilities of poor quality and support exhibited by this book will relagate them soon to be only able to publish and sell porn books or some types of books where readers will willingly pay big bucks but not care about correlating the text with the illustrations.

I will definitely be more cautious about purchasing or recommending any book published by SAMS in the future.

Mike Lane

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The model for tech books
Comment: Steven Walther hits it out of the park with ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed. I find the 'Unleashed' books to be pretty sketchy, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes mediocre. If 'Unleashed' people want to change that rep, all they have to do is hold authors to the standard set by Walther with this offering.

What makes this book different (and so much better)? The flow is logical, moving the reader from basic to advanced in a coherent manner. The chapters build one upon the other in a precise manner that can move a novice to competency pretty quickly, without getting lost. I read several technical books each year, and I have been developing on the .NET platform since it's inception, and I was able to learn quite a bit from the book thanks to the way that Walther establishes the concepts, gives good examples, and then shows how those concepts apply to more complex tasks such as extending controls.

Very good job, and I will buy whatever Walther publishes next.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Best book on ASP.Net
Comment: I am pretty new to .net and I brought several books on the subject, I have to say this book is very detailed and very easy to follow. If anyone is looking to buy a book on this subject, I would totally recommend this one. I did go through Apress books on ASP.net for novice to beginners, which I thought was not that easy to follow. I would ask anyone who is looking to buy a book on ASP.Net to invest in this one, the size of the book can make you think twice but you will be surprised how easy it is to follow.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Thumbs Way Up!!!
Comment: This book is best suited for those already with a basic knowledge of C# and ASP.Net who just want to dive in and quickly get exposed to the vast array of features available in ASP.Net 3.5 for web application development. There are lots of things one can learn from this book. For example, do you know that the ASP.Net Visual Page Designer in Visual Studio 2008 now supports nested Master Pages, or that one can now build pages containing more than one logical forms (say, a Login and a Register form) courtesy of validation group magic? Even the author's discussion of LINQ to SQL contain some materials I have not seen covered in other introductory books dedicated solely to LINQ. Although some chapters contain forward references to future chapters, each chapter is mostly self-contained and therefore, in my opinion, the chapters can be read in arbitrary order, which makes this book a really good reference book.

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