When it comes to finding sources for video-based training for ASP.NET, there are many organizations who don’t necessarily provide the best quality but are more than happy to make you part with your money. Having experienced these courses, both good and bad, I’ve narrowed this down to my three top choices. Any of these sites I would strongly recommend for watching videos on ASP.NET. Two have a moderate cost and one is free! [Read more…] about ASP.NET: Sources for Video-Based Training
LINQ to SQL: Object-Relational Mapping in .NET
Developing ASP.NET applications that work with data in Microsoft SQL Server can be daunting, even for professional developers. The idea of developing web applications has always been separating the code from the underlying data structure. While Microsoft’s declared that Entity Framework is the way they’re going, LINQ to SQL classes still remains an extremely fast and flexible method of object-relational mapping in .NET. It’s also a very good way for simplifying your own development efforts. [Read more…] about LINQ to SQL: Object-Relational Mapping in .NET
Code Tip (C#): Properties and Methods
In all C# applications, you typically build classes that contain properties and methods. Properties store data and methods perform work. Quite often you may encounter a situation where you need a property that contains information you can access from your application. However, you never want to perform method work directly inside the property. Instead, your properties and methods should perform their separate purposes and never the twain shall meet. You do this by letting your properties call the methods in your class.
Today’s code tip demonstrates how to do this. [Read more…] about Code Tip (C#): Properties and Methods
NuGet: Do You Get NuGet?
If you’ve never heard of NuGet, or even if you have but not tried it, there’s never been a better time. It was only a few weeks ago that Scott Hanselman, a member of the Microsoft Web Platform team, recently announced that the runtime ADO.NET Entity Framework, DbContext API, and tools were being open-sourced! Entity Framework may be obtained as quick download utilizing a Visual Studio extension called NuGet. NuGet also allows you download other common packages that can make you more productive such as jQuery and the AJAX Control Toolkit. [Read more…] about NuGet: Do You Get NuGet?
ASP.NET Web API: Freedom or Fad?
For the past two years I don’t think anyone can argue that Microsoft’s been pushing the envelope with the .NET Framework, particularly in the areas of web development. Most recently, they’ve been touting the new ASP.NET Web API as part of MVC4. The Web API is yet another framework working through Model-View-Controller (MVC) applications for interchange of HTTP services across multiple browser and mobile clients. In the last few years Microsoft has been chipping away at the development community at large to get developers to embrace MVC and now the ASP.NET Web API. [Read more…] about ASP.NET Web API: Freedom or Fad?
Entity Framework: A Model Way of Working with Data
Over the past few years, a team at Microsoft has been building and enhancing ADO.NET Entity Framework, which was first introduced in version 3.5 of .NET. The Entity Framework allows you to develop applications that utilize a model designed to sit between the actual data storage schema and the user interface within an ASP.NET application.
While it might seem this adds another tier to web applications, the fact is the Entity Framework model acts as a substitute for what would be the logic tier.
You have the choice to either generate an empty model or through an existing database. Consider the example below that demonstrates the model generation process from a BibleStore database.
You begin by adding an Entity Framework model to a project, which is selected from the Data templates column:
[Read more…] about Entity Framework: A Model Way of Working with Data