Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 (Programmer to Programmer)
David Buser,John Kauffman,Juan T. Llibre,Brian Francis,Dave Sussman,Chris Ullman,Jon Duckett | 2000-07-11 00:00:00 | Wrox | 1248 | C#
ASP is the future of the web. If you're looking for a way to create attractive, intelligent web pages, or if you're just looking for a way to extend your HTML know-how, then ASP is an effective way to achieve your goals. With ASP, you can customize your web pages to be more dynamic, more efficient and more responsive to your users. It's not just a technology, though - to get the best out of ASP, you'll be using it in tandem with HTML, and with one or more of the web's simple scripting languages. This book will teach you everything you need to create useful real-world applications on the web.
Who is this book for?
This book is for anybody with a grasp of HTML who wants to add more to their web pages. It also covers VBScript - a simple Internet programming language. This makes it the ideal first step for the aspiring web professional. It's also useful for more experienced programmers looking for a practical, no-nonsense introduction to ASP and programming for the web. To get the most out of this book you should be running Windows 2000, which includes ASP 3 - the latest version of this popular technology.
What does this book cover?
- Teaches VBScript as an integral part of learning to use ASP
- Describes how to make your pages more dynamic with HTML and script code
- Covers writing and debugging script code
- Explains how to set up ASP, what software to use, and how to administer your pages
- Shows how you can access databases to give dynamically updated web pages
- Introduces object based programming, and shows you how to use ASP objects
- Provides the foundation for you to write useful, real-world dynamic web pages
- Includes a fully worked sample application to demonstrate the power of ASP
- Loaded with examples and useful tips
- Introduces XML, one of the latest web programming technologies, and explains its use in conjunction with ASP
Filling an important spot in the Wrox Programmer to Programmer series, Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 is an excellent introduction to the new version of ASP released for the Windows 2000 platform. This guide expects no previous ASP knowledge or even previous Web development experience.
Its friendly style makes this book welcome reading at all skill levels. The material is carefully presented to avoid losing readers who are totally new to ASP programming, yet it still provides impressive technical coverage, beginning with the very basic concepts behind ASP programming and moving forward to advanced coding techniques.
As each topic is presented, relevant screen shots and useful code snippets under the heading "How It Works" complement the text. The chapters also include step-by-step exercises to familiarize you with new techniques and tools. An extensive case study application takes you through the entire development process as well. If you're interested in Web coding Microsoft-style, this is the right place to start. --Stephen W. Plain
Topics covered: ASP language fundamentals, server- and client-side scripting, ASP object model, cookies, error handling, scripting objects, recordsets, transactions and COM+, XML introduction, ADO object model, and VBScript reference.
Reviews
This book in book format may be good, but in the Kindle format beware that many pages (and ALL of the appendixes) are just scanned images of a text page and not actually scanned and converted to text.
On the Kindle you can't search for text that is on these pages and they show up small (like an image) on the screen. You have to zoom the image and even then you can't read some of the pages. And, zooming on the Kindle isn't exactly a fast process.
If you are a coder and you get this book as a reference manual, then keep in mind that when you search on a term, that your searches will never find any of the pages that are scanned in as images. For me, this defeats the whole advantage the Kindle version has over the book version.
The entire appendixes are scanned images of pages and non-searchable and that's where the ASP syntax reference section is located.
I'd avoid this book at least the Kindle version.
Reviews
i bought many ASP 3.0 books and this one is the best. I am studying to become a programmer and regardless of the books I must use in school, I will always buy from this cie. (www.wrox.cie)
Lots of examples, you can download the codes for free, easy to understand, why aren't all books like this ?
Reviews
Like the others have said... this is a good starter book for those looking to learn the older ASP technologies, since you may need to know a little of this if you are messing with older sites. I would recommend this book. However, the one thing that is wrong with this book is the MASSIVE amount of grammatical errors and typing errors.
Its calling out the wrong variables in certain situanions and mislabeling methods and procedures. Once you are aware this is happening in the book you just need to be mindful and know you aren't crazy, its a typing error. I hope Wrox has started taking their textbooks to the editor and getting them proofread, because it's a shame a book this good is peppered with so many errors.
In closing, this is worth the read and it will surely help you on you way to learning ASP 3.0.
Reviews
Beginning Active Server Pages is an all encompassing book on classic ASP web server development. The authors explain in great detail from the beginning on how dynamic web development works. No matter what technology you use (PHP, Coldfusion, JSP), how a web browser requests a page, the web server send the request to the server-side engine and/or does a database request and send the result to the browser. The book assumes no previous knowledge of web development and explains the basics very well so that any reader can start from any skill level.
The beginning of the book discusses what software you will need to get started which basically is either IIS (Internet Information Serve) or PWS (Personal web Server) in a Windows environment. How to install, test and configure the web server is discussed as well as setting up user permissions and virtual directories. This is a great starter to making sure the reader has all the information to get started on creating their first ASP web page.
The author continues explaining basic scripting techniques and language syntax of web scripting (VBScript) and explaining the differences between client and server side scripting and how the IIS engine interprets the request. Also covered early are the intrinsic ASP objects such as Request, Response, Server objects. A good review of some of the basic components of this very robust development technology.
The book then goes into send and receiving data from web forms in showing the reader some very useful but basic examples to get you started. The book covers in the next few chapters (4 - 5), in detail the basics of VBScript language such as variables, operators, strings, arrays, control statements (if, case, loops) and functions. The next chapter (6), goes into the concept of objects, methods, properties and events which explain to the user that almost everything is an object in ASP and the importance of this fact as well. Some OOP concepts such as encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism are reviewed with some nice examples.
The next two chapters cover many important ASP objects in great detail such as Response, Request, Application, Session, and Cookies. These chapters cover most of the most used objects that will be used in almost any ASP application. When you can master these objects you will have a great understanding of the fundamentals of ASP applications. The authors do a great job of explaining these important topics to the reader that it gives you more motivation to read more and learn more. Unlike other books that try to explain too much and confuse the reader, this book explains just enough in English other than techo-bable.
The rest of the book covers all types of database access using connects, recordsets, cursors, ADO, locking, filtering data, SQL syntax, and much more. Among other topics covered at the end of the book are focusing on advanced topics such as XML, Transactions and COM+.
The book is really all you need to learn and master ASP to develop dynamic web applications for yourself.
Reviews
Prior to purchasing this book I had no experience with ASP whatsoever. One day at work I was told that I needed to study up on ASP, and fast. I didn't really know where to start, but I ended up with this book, and it has been a lifesaver. I took the time to work through the examples in a select few key chapters, and was amazed that after only a couple of days I had developed the skills necessary for basic ASP development.
Now its been a few months, and the book still serves as a useful reference. It is extremely well organized. The examples are basic, but definitely teach the fundamentals needed to become a competent ASP developer. It will not make you an expert, but that's not its purpose anyway. It excels at relating the relevant information in an understandable and easy to learn format. For me to be developing with ASP in only 2 or 3 days is a testament to the quality of this book. I've never read a Wrox book before now, but I will definitely only purchase Wrox books in the future.
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