Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0

What is this book about?

ASP is the future of the web. If you're looking for a way to create attractive, intelligent web pages or, if you're just looking for a way to extend your HTML know-how, then ASP is an effective way to achieve your goals. With ASP, you can customize your web pages to be more dynamic, more efficient and more responsive to your users. It's not just a technology, though — to get the best out of ASP, you'll be using it in tandem with HTML, and with one or more of the web's simple scripting languages. The book will teach you everything you need to create useful real-world applications on the web.

What does this book cover?

• Teaches VBScript as an integral part of learning to use ASP
• Describes how to make your pages more dynamic with HTML and script code
• Covers writing and debugging script code
• Explains how to set up ASP, what software to use, and how to administer your pages
• Shows how you can access databases to give dynamically updated web pages
• Introduces object-based programming and shows you how to use ASP objects
• Provides the foundation for you to write useful, real-world dynamic web pages
• Includes a fully worked sample application to demonstrate the power of ASP
• Loaded with examples and useful tips
• Introduces XML, one of the latest web programming technologies, and explains its use in conjunction with ASP

Who is this book for?

This book is for anybody with a grasp of HTML who wants to add more to their web pages. It also covers VBScript — a simple Internet programming language. This makes it the ideal first step for the aspiring web professional. It's also useful for more experienced programmers looking for a practical, no-nonsense introduction to ASP and programming for the web.

What do you need to use this book?

To get the most out of this book you should be running Windows 2000, which includes ASP 3 — the latest version of this popular technology.

Chris Ullman is a Computer Science graduate who came to Wrox five years ago, when 14.4 modems were the hottest Internet technology and Netscape Navigator 2.0 was a groundbreaking innovation. Since then he's applied his knowledge of HTML, ASP, Visual Basic, SQL, Linux, and Java to developing, editing and authoring books. When not trying to coax better performance out of his ageing P233 or trying to persuade Wrox's managing editors that writing three chapters in one day isn't really feasible, he can be found either playing keyboards in psychedelic band, The Bee men, tutoring his not fully house-broken cats in the delights of using a litter tray, or hoping against hope that this is the year his favorite soccer team, Birmingham City, can manage to end their exile from the Premier League.

David Buser is President, CFO, and Janitor of BuserNet Consulting, LLC, in Herndon, Virginia. His first job out of college was in a titanium refinery, writing client/server applications using Access and SQL Server. This eventually led to a career in Internet development and ASP. Currently, his work is focused on teaching technical courses, writing for Wrox, developing e-commerce websites, and managing his server farm. See http://www.buser.net/david/ for more details.

Jon Duckett Having graduated from Brunel University, London, with a degree in Psychology, Jon took a change of direction, coming back to his home town to work for Wrox in their Birmingham (UK) offices.

Brian Francis is the Technical Evangelist for NCR's Retail Self Service Solutions. From his office in Duluth, Georgia, Brian is responsible for enlightening NCR and their customers in the technologies and tools used for Self Service Applications. Brian also uses the tools he evangelizes in developing solutions for NCR's customers. He has worked extensively with Wrox Press as a technical reviewer and has also co-authored on a number of projects.

John Kauffman His early research focussed on the molecular biology of the cocoa plant and chocolate production. Subsequently he moved to East Africa and managed an assistance program. In 1990 he moved to Taiwan and then mainland China where John provided software training services to multi-national corporations and the diplomatic community in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Sichuan. John now divides his freelance consulting time evenly between teaching, writing and programming, primarily in the areas of Visual Basic, Word macros, Access and Access Programming, and ASP.

Juan T. Llibre is a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for Internet development. His university degree is in Mass Communications and, as he puts it, “The Internet is the ultimate mass communications vehicle. It’s just great to be able to talk to the whole world while taking in the sun at a tropical beach on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.” Currently he’s developing Internet applications for the Caribbean Common Market and the Dominican Republic’s Central Bank. He’s also researching Multilingual Web Development with a view towards making the World Wide Web intelligible to, well, the whole wide world.

David Sussman has spent most of his professional life as a developer, starting with Unix and C, in the days when the Internet was only used for Usenet newsgroups. He then switched to Microsoft development languages, and spent several years moaning about the lack of pointers in Visual Basic. He lives in a quiet, rural village in Oxfordshire. He spends his spare time convincing himself that he'll get off his backside and get fit. He never does.