Description:
Although at least half as long as other titles on the subject, Essential ASP for Web Professionals is probably just as valuable for getting started with ASP. Aimed at the beginning or intermediate Web developer, this is an extremely useful, cookbook-style tutorial that helps readers of all levels use ASP (and JavaScript) to create Web pages dynamically by concisely offering a series of simple, effective ASP examples. The full source code is included, along with extensive annotations and suggestions for extending the code in custom projects. This approach is ideal for anyone who appreciates a hands-on approach to learning. The examples themselves are immediately practical. First off, a date-time script--and an example--gives out a random "tip of the day" read from a text file on the server. Then it's on to basic database programming with ADO and ASP. After a quick tour of database basics, readers learn some expert techniques for generating forms based on any database table without changing ASP code. (Not only will you be able to easily generate HTML forms on the fly, you'll also find out how to update databases from forms automatically--again without changing ASP code.) This flexible, "soft" approach to working with databases will help you write ASP code that's a lot easier to maintain. The book culminates in a full-featured shopping cart example for an e-commerce site. Techniques demonstrated include maintaining state with cookies. Throughout, the book does a fine job of showing how ASPs often work together to get the job done, instead of creating monolithic (and unmaintainable) scripts. For instance, the shopping cart example uses no less than 11 ASP files. (A quick "site map" diagram shows the organization.) Besides the basics, Essential ASP also offers a guide to some best practices, ensuring you'll learn the right way to do things, as well as pick up the basics quickly. Efficiently packaged, yet filled with some very useful code, this is a truly worthwhile tutorial for ASP development that's exactly what the busy Web professional needs to get started with this powerful standard. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: - Example-based ASP programming tutorial
- Introduction to Active Server Pages (ASP) created with JavaScript
- Programming with JavaScript date and time functions
- Working with text files
- Introduction to databases
- Tables and records
- Writing form data to text files (using ADO with ASP) and data-driven Web pages
- Editing, updating, and deleting database records
- Techniques and tips for building data-driven forms
- Implementing an e-commerce shopping cart with ASP (complete sample code and programming tips)
- Managing sessions with cookies
- Sending e-mail with CDONTS and ASP
- Short reference guide to JavaScript
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