This book is divided into three parts. The first part, "Building an ASP.NET Page," covers basic Web page development. The second part, "Adding Data in an ASP.NET Site," covers data in ASP.NET, including data providers, containers, data binding, grids, and viewing data. The third part, "ASP.NET Infrastructure," covers the HTTP request context, state management, caching, and security.

Although not as advanced as Pro ASP.NET 2.0 from Apress that I'll review next month, this book is still not meant for ASP.NET beginners. It assumes knowledge of Web programming, VS2005, and ASP.NET basics. For those getting started in ASP.NET or WEB development in general, I recommend either Beginning APS.NET books from Apress (ISBN 1-59059-572-6 (C#) or ISBN 1-59059-278-6 (VB)) or Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Step by Step from Microsoft Press (ISBN 0-7356-2201-9).

One of the nice features of this book is that the author has direct contact with the developers, so he can relate the thoughts and decisions behind the platform. This shows up in the first chapter when the concept of providers is explained as being a type of strategy pattern, and one of the key concepts in ASP.NET 2.0.

ASP.NET 2.0
The first chapter covers how Web pages work, the structure of an ASP.NET page such as directives, code, and page layout, ASP.NET controls, and the ASP.NET development stack, including the presentation layer, page framework, and the HTTP runtime environment. The chapter closes with an in-depth discussion of the provider model, an implementation of the strategy pattern, which lets the built-in modules be swapped out with custom modules.

Chapter 2 covers Visual Studio 2005 as it relates to ASP.NET development.

Chapter 3 covers ASP.NET Web pages in detail, including how HTTP request are made and processed. It also covers the .NET Page class, and closes with the page lifecycle, including page setup, postbacks, and finalization.

Chapter 4 covers the basic server controls starting with the base Control class, then HTML and Web controls.

Chapter 5 covers the HtmlForm class, error handling, and debugging. The debugging sections covers tracing, including trace messages and the trace viewer. It ends with page personalization, including creating the profile database, personalization events, and using the provider model to create custom personalization providers.

Chapter 6 covers rich page composition, including master pages, themes, and wizards. Master pages allow the creation of a "skeleton" page, which is used as a "base" page for other derived pages. Themes are a group of properties such as colors and fonts that can be applied to a page as a group. There is also the wizard control handing the logic needed to navigate users through multiple page forms, including the ability to move back to previous pages.

Data and ASP.NET 2.0
The second section covers data access as it applies to Web pages. For a complete understanding of data access you'll need to read a book dedicated to ADO.NET, such as Pro ADO.NET 2.0 from Apress, reviewed in DNDJ Vol. 4 Issue 2. Understanding how to setup and manage a database, how to design a database, and the intricacies of SQL syntax are outside the scope of even these books.

This book concentrates on using SQL, so those using Oracle or other databases will need another book covering those specific databases in addition to this book. Concentrating on SQL is good in that it simplifies the discussion, but the fact that Oracle isn't even mentioned is a serious shortcoming. Using Access as a data source is discussed.

Chapter 7 gives an overview of .NET database access, and how the provider model allows access to different databases. It covers the SqlConnection class including connection pooling and the SqlCommand class, ADO.NET data readers, asynchronous commands, transactions, and SQL 2005 specific functions.

Chapter 8 covers the SqlDataAdaptor, and how tables and columns are mapped. It also covers the DataSet, DataTable, and Dataview classes, and how relations are handled.

Chapter 9 covers basic data binding including the DataBinder class. The chapter also covers various data source controls, and how they're bound to simple controls.

Chapter 10 covers binding data to the more complex DataGrid and GridView controls, including using the GridView control to page, sort, and edit data. This chapter closes the section by covering the DetailsView control, including Master/Detail views and the FormView control.

ASP.NET Infrastructure
The final section covers ASP.NET infrastructure, specifically HTTP requests, state management, and caching.

Chapter 12 goes into the detail on HTTP request handling, covering the global.asax file, and the HttpApplication, HttpContext, HttpServerUtility, HttpResponse, and HttpRequest classes.

Chapter 13 covers state management giving the details of the HttpApplicationState and HttpSessionState class, and the page view state contained in the StateBag class.

Finally, chapter 14 covers ASP.NET caching via the Cache class.

Summary
Every ASP.NET developer should have a copy of this book within reach. It is a great reference book, giving both the basic reference data, and how to use it effectively. It's a great value with its $49.99 price tag. However, you will still need other ASP.NET books such as those listed above to round out your library.

Title: Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0
Author: Dino Esposito
Publisher: Microsoft Press
ISBN #: 0-7356-2176-4
Price: US $49.99