ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls, For .NET Framework 3.5 (2009)

ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls, For .NET Framework 3.5

THE ASP.NET PLATFORM POWERS millions of websites around the

world today, and is perhaps one of the most productive platforms for web

development. During the nearly ten years of its development and use,

ASP.NET has formed around itself a strong community and vibrant ecosystem

of developers.

Download ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls, For .NET Framework 3.5 (2009)

The page framework and the associated server controls framework are

quintessential to the success of ASP.NET and its developer experience, programming

model, and extensibility. Writing this Foreword brings back

memories of early ASP.NET days, and reminds me of the continued evolution

of the framework as a platform alongside the Web.

In the late 1990s, the Web was very much a nascent application platform.

Browsers brought potential for new levels of reach, but offered few and

varying degrees of capabilities (remember HTML 3.2?), and concepts such

as “stateless programming model” presented an odd paradigm shift. Server

controls provided a set of familiar abstractions and created a componentbased

rapid application development (RAD) programming experience for

the Web (à la Visual Basic) and allowed developers to feel at home as they

started to look to the Web to build the next generation of data-driven applications.

Flash forward a few years, and in 2006, the AJAX buzz created a

renewed interest in the Web as the application platform. Today, AJAX is

mainstream and, quite literally, everywhere. It enables building interactive

experiences that users have come to expect. Still, it brings new but similar

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challenges: varying browser APIs and an unfamiliar script-based programming

model. Once again, ASP.NET (and in particular, server controls)

provided a mechanism for creating a productive development model for

incorporating AJAX-based techniques, and for encapsulating server and

client behaviors into a familiar and consistent component model.

ASP.NET provides an end-to-end AJAX story. Traditional server controls

create a simple server-centric AJAX programming model, but they are

just a part of the story. This new generation of server controls leverages an

AJAX script framework that independently enables a client-centric AJAX

programming model. The core framework is complemented by the AJAX

Control Toolkit, which offers both a compelling set of out-of-the-box components

and an open source project for further developing the ASP.NET

AJAX stack. I am excited to see this end-to-end story uncovered and unfold

itself over the course of this book.

In this book, Adam and Joel focus on providing a beyond-the-basics drill

down of the inner workings and extensibility of the ASP.NET AJAX framework

by covering the programming patterns established by the script

framework, the architecture, and the techniques to create AJAX-enabled

server controls. They also cover advanced but still relevant topics such as

localization and error handling. By providing a conceptual guide to understanding

and extending the framework, this book is sure to serve any application

or component developer who is looking to unlock the true potential

of ASP.NET AJAX.

—Nikhil Kothari