ASP.Net 2.0 Beta Preview Description:

ASP.Net 2.0 Beta Preview review:
4 stars (Nice book) - The book has 15 chapters and they are wisely categorized, starting from an introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 and why was it needed with some of its new features at a glance, it also discusses Visual Studio 2007 IDE enhancements and the new server controls like Grid View and Details View controls for effective display of information. It also has a chapter dedicated to Personalization and Membership and Role Management which is an awesome new feature.



It also discusses Web Parts and Portal Framework and some of the language enhancements in VB 8.0 and C# 2.0. The book also features SQL cache invalidation and its benefits, lastly it gives us an insight into the additional new controls shipped with ASP.NET 2.0 like Mutliview & View Server controls and Wizard Server control.



I strongly recommend this book to anyone seriously thinking to know more about ASP.NET 2.0 but note that this book was written for Beta 1 of ASP.NET, therefore there are some changes in the Beta 2 for example Directory Naming Changes and Compilation Model Changes, visit Updated Changes for Beta 2 and Features postponed for ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2 for more information.



Happy reading!
3 stars (For VB users & beginners only) - I was unimpressed by this book. MSDN documentation was 10x better, they failed to include any reference to Remote Scripting or Callback methods, they didn't add in any reference of how to use client side script handlers or a number of features you would expect that are included in 2.0. If you want an update to all the past controls that you already know then this is great, if you want to delve deeply into the advanced new features of ASP.NET 2.0 then I don't recommend this. The author also is obviously a VB developer but pads the book by using a generic converter for most of his code, quite a poor display in my opinion.
5 stars (Beta, Remember Beta, Not Yet a Bible.) - Note that this is a book based on the Beta release of the software. Usually, emphasize usually, Microsoft Beta software is actually pretty far along and most of the changes from Beta to production are really just bug fixes and not changes in the look, feel, and functionality of the product. But this is not to guarantee that changes won't be included in the final release.



The biggest change I can see in ASP.NET 2.0 is on their approach to eliminate much of the intense coding that ASP.NET required. ASP.NET was quite verbose - doing a program was rather like writing War and Peace, and you had better be exactly right in your spelling, grammer, and punctuation. The goal was to reduce the amount of code needed by two thirds. And it appears that they've accomplished this.



The next major point seems to be that ASP.NET is integrated more closely with the rest of .NET. You use Visual Studio 2007 to build any type of .NET component, including ASP.NET. When microsoft says Integrated Development Environment, they mean it. All of their applications are tied together, some loosely, some more tightly, and the indications are that in the future they will be much more tightly.



All in all, this book is just what it says, a Beta Preview. It presumes some understanding of version 1, and tells you what's happening in version 2. It is amazing to see the amount of access and availability to resources within Microsoft that Mr. Evjen had to produce this book