Description
This detailed reference contains all the information Web developers need to create effective Active Server Pages (ASP) applications. It focuses on how features are used in a real application and highlights little-known or undocumented aspects, enabling even experienced developers to advance their ASP applications to new levels.
Full Description
Active Server Pages (ASP) has become a standard for developing server-side Web applications. Prior to the development of ASP and other earlier scripting solutions, such as Sun's Java, Netscape's JavaScript, and Microsoft's VBScript, all information served to the client's browser was static -- the Web server did not dynamically generate any part of the site's content. ASP allows Web developers to dynamically generate browser-neutral content.
ASP in a Nutshell provides the high-quality documentation that developers really need to create effective ASP applications. It focuses on how features are used in a real application and highlights little-known or undocumented features as well. This book also includes an overview of the interaction of the latest release of Internet Information Server (version 4) and ASP, with an introduction to the IIS object model and the objects it comprises. The examples given in this section and throughout the book are illustrated in VBScript.
This book is written for Web developers with an extensive knowledge base and years of experience behind them. Like other books in the In a Nutshell series, this book offers the facts, including critical background information, in a no-nonsense manner that users will refer to again and again. It is a detailed reference that enables even experienced Web developers to advance their ASP applications to new levels.
The main components covered in this book are:
- Active Server Pages Introduction. Brief overview of the ASP application paradigm with examples in VBScript. Also an introduction to Microsoft's Internet Information Server 4.0, the IIS object model, and the objects that it comprises.
- Object Reference. Each object is discussed in the following manner: descriptions, properties, collections, methods, events, accessory files/required DLLs, and remarks, including real-world uses, tips and tricks, and author's experience (where applicable). The objects: Application, Response, Request, Server, Session, ObjectContext, as well as ASP Directives, Global.ASA, and SS Includes all follow this paradigm.
- Component Reference. This section follows the same paradigm detailed in Object Reference. The discussion covers Active Data Objects, Ad Rotator, Browser capabilities, File Access, Tools, and more.
- Appendices. Gives examples in one or two objects and components using Perl, REXX, and Python in ASP.
The information in this book is written in a no-nonsense manner. Readers will find high-quality documentation and useful examples throughout. It is a detailed reference that provides Web developers with the information they need to develop effective ASP applications.
Colophon
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal appearing on the cover of ASP in a Nutshell is an asp, which is a term applied to various venomous snakes, including the depicted asp viper (Vipera aspis) of Europe as well as the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje), thought to have been the means of Cleopatra's suicide.
Needing to eat at least 5-6% of their body weight in food per week, European asp vipers hunt by lying in wait for approaching prey. After grabbing and biting small rodents or other prey, they release it and wait several minutes for it to stop moving; the generally sluggish viper rarely chases prey. Vipers know their home territory very well, which allows quick escape from their asp-kicking natural enemies, serpent eagles and hedgehogs. This trick hasn't helped them with escape from their greatest threat, the expansion of human civilization, which frequently wipes out large sections of their territory.
The chemical composition of asp viper venom can vary from one population to the next, hampering initial antivenin development until 1896, but few viper bite fatalities occur in Europe today. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with QuarkXPress 3.32 using the ITC Garamond font. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover(TM), a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover's limit, perfect binding is used.
The inside layout was designed by Nancy Priest and implemented in FrameMaker by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 7.0 and screen shots were created in Adobe Photoshop 4.0 by Robert Romano or Rhon Porter. This colophon was written by Nancy Kotary.
