Learning C# 2005, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19. Programming ASP.NET Applications

In the previous chapter, you saw how to use C# to create Windows applications; in this chapter, you’ll see how to use C# to create applications for the Web.

The .NET technology for building web applications (and dynamic web sites) is ASP. NET 2.0, which provides a rich collection of types for building web applications in its System.Web and System.Web.UI namespaces. There is a great deal to learn about ASP.NET, but much of it is language-independent. ASP.NET offers a rich suite of controls and related tools, including tools to validate data, display dates, present advertisements, interact with users, and so forth. Most of these require no coding whatsoever.

Tip

For more on the details of ASP.NET, please see Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition, by Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz (O’Reilly, 2005).

The role of the C# programmer in ASP.NET development is to write the event handlers that respond to user interaction. Many of the event handlers will either add data to a database or retrieve data and make it available to the controls.

With Web Forms , the application is deployed to a web server, and users interact with the application through a standard browser.

Understanding Web Forms

Web Forms bring Rapid Application Development (RAD ) techniques (such as those used in Windows Forms) to the development of web applications. As with Windows Forms, you drag-and-drop controls onto a form and write the supporting code either inline or in code-behind