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Introduction
ASP.NET is Microsoft’s platform for developing web applications. Using ASP.NET, you can create e-commerce
shops, data-driven portal sites, and just about anything else you can nd on the Internet. Best of all, you don’t
need to paste together a jumble of HTML and script code in order to program the Web. Instead, you can create
full-scale web applications using nothing but code and a design tool such as Visual Studio.
e cost of all this innovation is the learning curve. To master ASP.NET, you need to learn how to use
an advanced design tool (Visual Studio), a toolkit of objects (the .NET Framework), and an object-oriented
programming language (such as Visual Basic). Taken together, these topics provide more than enough to
overwhelm any rst-time web developer.
Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 in VB assumes you want to master ASP.NET, starting from the basics. Using this
book, you’ll build your knowledge until you understand the concepts, techniques, and best practices for writing
sophisticated web applications. e journey is long, but it’s also satisfying. At the end of the day, you’ll nd that
ASP.NET allows you to tackle challenges that are simply out of reach on many other platforms.
About This Book
is book explores ASP.NET, which is a core part of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. e .NET Framework is not
a single application—it’s a collection of technologies bundled into one marketing term. e .NET Framework
includes languages such as C# and VB, an engine for hosting programmable web pages, a model for interacting
with databases (ADO.NET), a higher-level framework for performing queries (LINQ and the Entity Framework),
and a class library stocked with tools for everything from reading les to validating a password. To master
ASP.NET, you need to learn about each of these ingredients.
is book covers all these topics from the ground up. As a result, you’ll nd yourself learning many
techniques that will interest any .NET developer, even those who create Windows applications. For example,
you’ll learn about component-based programming, you’ll discover structured error handling, and you’ll see how
to access les, XML, and relational databases. You’ll also learn the key topics you need for web programming,
such as state management, web controls, and caching. By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to create your own
rich web applications and make them available over the Internet.
Who Should Read is Book
is book is aimed at anyone who wants to create dynamic websites with ASP.NET. Ideally, you’ll have experience
with a previous version of a programming language such as Visual Basic or Java. If not, you should be familiar
with basic programming concepts (loops, conditional structures, arrays, and so on), whether you’ve learned
them in C, Pascal, Turing, or a completely dierent programming language. is is the only requirement for
reading this book.
Understanding HTML and XHTML (the markup languages used to write web pages) will help you, but it’s
not required. ASP.NET works at a higher level, allowing you to deal with full-featured web controls instead of raw
web page markup. However, you’ll get a quick overview of HTML5 fundamentals in Chapter 4, and you’ll learn
about CSS, the Cascading Style Sheet standard, in Chapter 12.
