Essential ASP.NET With Examples in C# Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently read the excellent "ASP.NET Essentials with Examples in C#" by Fritz Onion, published by Addison-Wesley as part of the company's excellent .NET Development Series. Having been working with ASP.NET for more than two years, I tend to be a bit more skeptical of new ASP.NET titles when they take an omnibus approach, attempting to preview an entire technology in one book, rather than a specific part of a platform or the application of it.
This is definitely not the case with this new book, as it's a very refreshing overview of ASP.NET for those who have been working with it.
It's been my experience that with most titles taking an omnibus approach, a book will have one or two chapters that really shine, explaining some aspect of ASP.NET development better than most books. This book has several such gems. It features one of the better descriptions of proper surgery of machine.config/web.config that you'll find on the market today. Specifically, each element with an application's configuration file is examined, instead of the lackadaisical "here's a look at the more important ones" approach that so many authors sadly resort to.
It also sports a better description than most books about the ASP.NET worker process (aspnet_wp.exe) and the role of it within the context of an application. The book also does a good job of defining the HTTP pipeline and the importance of authoring custom modules to extend/enhance an application. Really good chapters on data binding and writing custom server controls also stand out. Both beginners and experienced developers will get a lot out of these helpful and very necessary explanations.
The illustrations are very helpful, and Onion takes another rarely-used approach - explaining each and every data member for each interface implemented by ASP.NET, rather than just saying, "Class XYZ implements IASyncResult". The book's focus is giving the professional developer a better understanding of the inner-workings of the ASP.NET platform, not providing some generic code samples.
Author Onion's writing style is pleasant - he doesn't insult more experienced developers by diluting the easier material, and likewise won't render beginners numb with confusion when explaining more technical concepts.
The book's physical binding is solid, with a rugged cover, thick paper, and a spine that won't easily break while resting in your lap while coding or on your stomach while reading (like me!) At a lean 378 pages, the book features 11 power-packed chapters that won't have you forego your normal social habits just to get through it (I finished the book in two nights' time).
However, I found it curious that the book did not cover the obligatory chapter on XML Web services. This surprised me, as it has become a de facto standard for authoring ASP.NET titles to at least mention how to write "Hello, world!". No biggie on this one, just sort of surprising.
But outside of that, the book is a winner, and a must-have for experienced developers who want to augment their knowledge of ASP.NET by being aware what goes on under-the-hood.
Bravo Fritz, for a job well done!

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Essential ASP.NET with Examples in C# is the C# programmer's definitive reference for ASP.NET through version 1.1. Intended for students with advanced programming experience, this book provides them with the information needed to fully understand the technology, and is a clear guide to using ASP.NET to build robust and well architected Web applications. This book begins with a discussion of the rationale behind the design of ASP.NET and an introduction to how it builds on top of the .NET framework. Subsequent chapters explore the host of new features in ASP.NET, including the server-side compilation model, code-behind classes, server-side controls, form validation, the data binding model, and custom control development. Throughout the book, working examples illustrate best practices for building Web-based applications in C#.

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