While billed as a reference, which it surely is, this title is also a strong choice for a tutorial designed to get you working with the powerful .NET Framework in a hurry. Early sections set the stage with a comparison of the older ASP standard and the advantages of the new ASP.NET. The authors then dig right in with essential APIs that will get you started here, like using built-in objects for requests, sessions, and cookies. Short code excerpts in VB .NET and C# illustrate just how to do it.

The new choices for ADO.NET components will surely challenge new .NET programmers. This book excels at describing all of your options, from simpler HTML controls to the new Web Forms options. Standout sections include full coverage of the variety of list components available in ASP.NET, from simple lists to grids and Repeater controls. For wireless development, the authors reprise their coverage of controls with those available for PDAs and handhelds in Microsoft's Mobile Internet Toolkit.

Successful ASP.NET development requires more than using Web controls. A really useful section here tours the "core" .NET system classes for collections, regular expressions, and file I/O, which will let you perform basic tasks in your Web applications.

Later sections turn toward server-side options available in .NET, from caching pages for better performance to configuration options (using new configuration properties files), and a rich tour of the security options for ASP.NET programmers (including the new Microsoft Passport service). Rounding out this book is excellent coverage of the standards and classes you will need to implement Web services and XML, as well as a reference section with complete code examples for common ASP.NET tasks (including building a simple Web service).