A First Look is one of the first, if not the first, books on "Whidbey", the codename for Microsoft's new version of ASP.NET version 2.0. At the time of this writing, ASP.NET v2.0 "Whidbey" is in the Alpha stages and not even released into Beta, but already it has caused quite a stir in the ASP.NET development circles. The latest information I have heard is that Beta 1 will be out at the beginning of May 2004 and Beta 2 will be the first release that includes the "go-live" license so that anyone can host a website using Whidbey.

The first chapter of the book starts out with an introduction to "Whidbey"
and briefly covers many of the impressive features, giving a strong "wow
factor". The second chapter touches on Visual Studio "Whidbey" and then the rest
of the book covers "Whidbey" development and administration in detail. Whidbey
is something worth writing about and the authors have done a great job covering
the whole spectrum of impressive new features.

So, what type of book is this? It's not just a book trying to show off the
ease and power of Whidbey, otherwise I'm sure I would have been bored before too
long. It's a book that is both a reference book and a readable book on "Whidbey"
that gets into the features in detail and expounds on the properties, methods
and other aspects of v2.0. There is really so much to cover that some parts
weren't covered at all or only briefly in this book. For example XML and ADO.NET
each get their own book. Also, as this is specifically about the changes that
Whidbey offers, you won't see mention of anything that isn't new or changed.
Again, the target audience isn't the non-ASP.NET developer.

Code examples were generously given, and in my opinion, a good balance of
small and simple, offering a foundation to work with. One example where I wasn't
disappointed was the Client callbacks, a new Client-Side Script feature. The
description of it was good enough but I was itching to see a code example, and
sure enough they gave one. Expect to see code examples in Visual Basic for most
of the major features and many of the sub-features. There are dozens of great
code examples that will at least get your feet wet.

I have to try hard to come up with any cons for this book, but there are two
things I noticed. I found that there wasn't consistency throughout the book in
regards to documentation, code examples and other reference information.
Sometimes you would find reference charts, code examples, even flow charts while
other times there is just a quick mention in paragraph form of a new feature or
change to an existing feature. This really isn't as bad as it sounds, the
features that have the largest target audience and 'wow factor' are well
covered. The second thing I wish this had is a better means of locating the
reference information. There isn't a cross-reference chart or means to quickly
find much of the great information, and when I have used this as my reference
guide for some development it look me a while to find what I was looking for.
But, with a few bookmarks and a highlighter this could quickly become a great
tool to use as a primary reference for development in Whidbey.

One of the things that I appreciated most was the inside knowledge that all
three authors offer. They don't just cover specs and reference material, but
give information on the goals of the ASP.NET Team on various features, and
vision on what will be available in the Beta and final releases of the product.
This is one of those books that you don't think twice about its accuracy and
correctness. I found the book enjoyable although my wife (a non-developer)
started getting sick of me telling her all the details of Whidbey. It's one of
those topics and books that you just need to tell someone about and my wife
happened to be the unfortunate recipient of my excitement.

I would highly recommend A First Look to existing ASP.NET Developers. The
topic is exciting and the authors did a great job of covering the bases in an
enjoyable and easy to follow format. Now it's just a matter of waiting until
Whidbey is fully released so that development with Whidbey can be shown to the
world.

By Scott Forsyth

Scott Forsyth is Director of IT at ORCS
Web, Inc. - a company that provides managed hosting services for clients who
develop and deploy their applications on Microsoft Windows platforms.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

| | | | | | | | | | |