Windows Web Forms pages can streamline development for a variety of applications—but many Microsoft WindowsЮ-related programming books skip over the details that allow developers to take full advantage of Web Forms. In addition, Version 2.0 of the Microsoft .NET Framework introduces new capabilities that even those familiar with early versions of Web Forms will want to learn to use. Written by well-known columnist and author Douglas Reilly, this book offers a concise, focused tutorial suitable for new and experienced Web Forms developers who want to expedite their productivity with Microsoft Visual StudioЮ 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0. The book features insightful code samples in Microsoft Visual C#Ю 2005.
When I first heard about Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, I knew that creating ASP.NET 2.0 applications would be a very different sort of experience from development in previous generations of ASP.NET. Scott Guthrie, Microsoft product unit manager in Web Platforms and Tools, introduced ASP.NET 2.0 by stating that the primary goal was a 70 percent reduction in the amount of code developers must produce. I am not certain that a 70 percent code reduction is possible in all cases, but for most Web Forms applications, the amount of code is certainly reduced by at least 50 percent.
It is with that in mind that this book was written. As I worked with early versions of ASP.NET 2.0, I was impressed by how much could be done with very little code. Especially noteworthy is the reduction in code possible for handling database access. Also, database access is more flexible than it was in previous versions of Microsoft Visual Studio, even with the reduced need for code. Just as ASP.NET 1.x allowed developers to conveniently describe text boxes and validation rules declaratively, ASP.NET 2.0 allows developers to perform most databaserelated tasks by using declarative syntax inside ASP.NET 2.0 markup files.
As with previous versions of ASP.NET, nothing prevents you from creating ASP.NET 2.0 applications with any standard text editor. However, I expect that because of improvements to Visual Studio 2005, most developers will use it for Web Forms development with ASP.NET 2.0. This book uses Visual Studio 2005 for all examples.
