Amazon.co.uk Review
Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology is popular for both intranet and internet Web sites, thanks to its use of familiar Visual Basic script, easy access to databases, and integration with Windows NT and Windows 2000. This title is a complete guide to ASP Version 3.0, which is the Windows 2000 version, but most of the book applies equally to ASP 2.0. No previous knowledge is assumed.
The author, Russell Jones, is the Interactive Developer columnist for Visual Basic Programmer's Journal. He begins with an overview of ASP and HTML, and goes on to describe the intrinsic ASP objects that form the foundation for ASP programming. Next there is an introduction to both VBScript and JScript, and a guide to file access using the File System Object. A key to ASP is accessing data with Active Data Objects (ADO), and the database section describes both ADO and the SQL query language. There is a brief look at transaction handling with Microsoft Transaction Server.
The final sections cover the bigger picture, designing complete applications. There is a valuable discussion of state management and general tips on application design. A brief introduction to developing your own components is given alongside chapters on task scheduling, scalability, XML, and using ASP on Unix.
The strength of this book is also its weakness. In making this suitable for ASP beginners, the author has limited the space available for advanced topics. If you are looking for extensive coverage of COM+, more detail on ADO, or using ASP with Message Queue Server or Active Directory, for example, look at Professional Active Server Pages 3.0. On the other hand, beginning and intermediate developers will find Mastering Active Server Pages 3 an excellent starting point. --Tim Anderson
Product Description
Active Server Pages is Microsoft's technology for delivering dynamic, interactive Web applications. Mastering Active Server Pages 3 gives comprehensive coverage of the latest version for Visual Basic, VBScript, and Visual InterDev programmers. The book also covers the newest Linux/Unix version of ASP (ChiliASP) and discusses both VBScript and JScript implementations.
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