This has been a very long journey. We found that writing this book was a challenging
task, a much harder one than we had anticipated, but there were also moments of joy
and discovery along the way! The idea for the book first came to us 18 months ago,
and many days and nights have come and gone between the first sentence we wrote
and the final book you hold today.
This is not our first book—it is the ninth book for Daniele, the seventh for Stefano,
and the fourth for Marco—but it is the most complex one we’ve attempted because of
the Techniques format we implement in the book. In addition, we were coauthoring
another book for Manning Publications, Entity Framework 4 in Action, at roughly the
same time.
Our aim in writing this book was not to create a typical reference book: there are
plenty of those around. We felt that because ASP.NET has now reached a high level of
maturity, the time was ripe for a book of best practices, and that is what we set out to
do. Instead of focusing on how a class is implemented or what members offer, this
book shows you how to get tasks done, the right way.
If your days (and nights) are spent on implementing web applications, you know
that the best way to learn is from experience. This book contains all the tips we have
learned in more than 10 years of working with ASP.NET. Everything in this book comes
from our own day-by-day experience working as consultants as well from ASP.NET community
members. We learned a lot from other people’s problems, and we are happy to
now share the solutions and best practices with you.
