The most up–to–date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you’ll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008 guides you through Microsoft’s latest technology for building dynamic web sites. This book will enable you to build dynamic web pages on the fly, and it assumes only the most basic knowledge of VB 2008.

The book provides exhaustive coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from your first steps right up to the most advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and tuning your site for optimal performance. Within these pages, you’ll find tips for “best practices” and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles you need to know in order to be effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will start you off on the track to building real–world web sites right from the beginning rather than just faking it with simplified coding practices.

By the time you’ve finished the book, you will have mastered the core techniques and have all the knowledge you need to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.

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The most up–to–date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you’ll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008 guides you through Microsoft’s latest technology for building dynamic web sites. This book will enable you to build dynamic web pages on the fly, and it assumes only the most basic knowledge of C#.

The book provides exhaustive coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from your first steps right up to the most advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and tuning your site for optimal performance. Within these pages, you’ll find tips for “best practices” and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles you need to know in order to be effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will start you off on the track to building real–world web sites right from the beginning—rather than just faking it with simplified coding practices.

By the time you’ve finished the book, you will have mastered the core techniques and have all the knowledge you need to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.

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 LINQ is the project name for a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that provide a generic approach to querying data from different data sources. LINQ will premier in Visual Studio 2008, and will become the next must-have skill for .NET developers. For more information about LINQ, you can check out the author’s portal at www.linqdev.com.

Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 is all about code.

Literally, this book starts with code and ends with code. In most books, the author shows the simplest example demonstrating how to use a method, but they so rarely show how to use the more complex prototypes. Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 is different. Demonstrating the overwhelming majority of LINQ operators and protoypes, it is a veritable treasury of LINQ examples.

Rather than obscure the relevant LINQ principles in code examples by focusing on a demonstration application you have no interest in writing, Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 cuts right to the chase of each LINQ operator, method, or class. However, where complexity is necessary to truly demonstrate an issue, the examples are right there in the thick of it. For example, code samples demonstrating how to handle concurrency conflicts actually create concurrency conflicts so you can step through the code and see them unfold.

Most books tell you about the simple stuff, while few books warn you of the pitfalls. Where Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 returns your investment is in the hours, and sometimes days, spent by the author determining why something may not work as expected. Sometimes this results in an innocent looking paragraph that may take you a minute to read and understand, but took days to research and explain.

Face it, most technical books while informative, are dull. LINQ need not be dull. Written with a sense of humor, Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008 will attempt to entertain you on your journey through the wonderland of LINQ and C# 2008.

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C# 2008 offers powerful new features, and Accelerated C# 2008 is the fastest path to mastering them, and the rest of C#, for both experienced C# programmers moving to C# 2008 and programmers moving to C# from another object-oriented language. Many books introduce C#, but very few also explain how to use it optimally with the .NET common language runtime (CLR). This book teaches both core C# language concepts and how to wisely employ C# idioms and object-oriented design patterns to exploit the power of C# and the CLR.
This book is both a rapid tutorial and a permanent reference. You’ll quickly master C# syntax while learning how the CLR simplifies many programming tasks. You’ll also learn best practices that ensure your code will be efficient, reusable, and robust. Why spend months or years discovering the best ways to design and code C# when this book will show you how to do things the right way, right from the start?

    * Comprehensively and concisely explains both C# 2005 and C# 2008 features
    * Focuses on the language itself and on how to use C# 2008 proficiently for all .NET application development
    * Concentrates on how C# features work and how to best use them for robust, high-performance code.

What you’ll learn
    o How C# works with and exploits the CLR
    o How to use arrays, collections, and iterators
    o How to handle events with delegates and anonymous functions
    o How to design and use generic types and methods
    o How to thread efficiently and robustly
    o How the new C# 2008 anonymous types, lamba expressions, and extension methods work and how to use them

Who is this book for?
If you’re an experienced C# programmer, you need to understand how C# has changed with C# 2008. If you're an experienced object-oriented programmer moving to C#, you want to ramp up quickly in the language while learning the latest features and techniques. In either case, this book is for you. The first three chapters succinctly present C# fundamentals, for those new to or reviewing C#. The rest of the book covers all the major C# features, in great detail, explaining how they work and how best to use them. Whatever your background or need, you'll treasure this book for as long as you code in C# 2008.

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There is a hidden revolution going on: geography is moving from niche to the mainstream. GIS for Web Developers introduces Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in simple terms and demonstrates hands-on uses. With this book, you’ll explore popular websites like maps.google.com, see the technologies they use, and learn how to create your own. Written with the usual Pragmatic Bookshelf humor and real-world experience, GIS for Web Developers makes geographic programming concepts accessible to the common developer.

This book will demystify GIS and show you how to make GIS work for you. You’ll learn the buzzwords and explore ways to geographically-enable your own applications. GIS is not a fundamentally difficult domain, but there is a barrier to entry because of the industry jargon. This book will show you how to “walk the walk” and “talk the talk” of a geographer. You’ll learn how to find the vast amounts of free geographic data that’s out there and how to bring it all together. Although this data is free, it’s scattered across the web on a variety of different sites, in a variety of incompatible formats. You’ll see how to convert it among several popular formats?including plain text, ESRI Shapefiles, and Geography Markup Language (GML). With this book in hand, you’ll become a real geographic programmer using the Java programming language. You’ll find plenty of working code examples in Java using some of the many GIS-oriented applications and APIs. You’ll be able to:
    * Find free sources of GIS data on the web
    * Browse GIS data using open source desktop viewers
    * Manipulate GIS data programmatically
    * Store and retrieve data using geographically-enabled databases
    * Explore free web toolkits like Google Maps
    * Publish and consume web services using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interfaces

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 Silverlight–the hot new web technology based on the powerful WPF graphics platform that ships with Windows Vista–is the web developer's choice for creating cross-platform interactive applications that work in multiple browsers. This one-of-a-kindreference shows you, with full-color illustrations, how to create rich interactive apps with Silverlight.

In these color-filled pages, a crack team of Wrox experts gives you a comprehensive introduction to Silverlight. You'll see the vivid graphics and video images you can achieve. You will learn to use the component languages, tools, and techniques of Silverlight to create applications that enhance the user experience. You'll also discover how to leverage existing technologies, such as JavaScript(r), XAML, ASP.NET, and AJAX, and incorporate them with development tools like Visual Studio(r), Expression(r) Encoder, and Expression Blend. Soon you'll be building everything from basic static pages to Internet applications that integrate rich media and animation.

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