Last night I completed Part 1 of Expert ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Application Design, called ASP.NET 2.0 Internals.
ASP.NET 2.0 Internals
This section is about 150 pages long and packed full of really good information on semi-advanced topics in ASP.NET 2.0. It consists of the following 4 chapters discussed below:
Chapter 1 - Overview of .NET Application Architecture
This chapter briefly discusses different application architectures for ASP.NET applications. If you are more of a developer / coder and not much into architectural design, this chapter may bore you a bit with discussions of architectural components / services and various nonfunctional requirements ( performance, scalability, etc.). Don't let this chapter scare you, however, if you are more into the nuts and bolts, because the next 3 chapters will provide more technical information and code.
Chapter 2 - The ASP.NET Request Pipeline
A short but effective chapter introducing the application lifecycle, events and the good 'ol Global.asax file. It digs further by describing how to inherit from HttpApplication and plug into application events by writing HttpModules. Last, it discusses the role of HttpHandlers in ASP.NET and how to create one and configure IIS to use it.
Chapter 3 - Page Object Internals
Chapter 3 starts with an introduction into the new compilation models and the use of partial classes used by Visual Studio 2005 for code generation. It then discusses the control tree of a webform and the various events fired by the page and how and why you might use them in your applications.
Chapter 4 - ViewState and Scripting
This chapter discusses the role of ViewState in your applications and new features in ASP.NET 2.0 that overcome problems in ASP.NET 1.x
- Cross-Page Postbacks
- Optimized Serialization
- Control State
- Post-Cache Substitution
as well as using LosFormatter to save and load the viewstate to a database as opposed to a hidden field on the page.
The part on scripting discusses the various ways of registering client script as well as the use of Out-of-Band Callbacks.
Summary
Most intermediate to advanced developers will be familiar with the information presented and think of it as a good re-introduction / refresher to the topics. New ASP.NET developers will learn a ton of good internal information in only a few pages that will round out their knowledge quite nicely. HttpModules are a must learn in my opinion as well as the lifecycle and event model for both HttpApplication and pages. The part on ViewState provides an excellent comparison-contrast of the ViewState related technologies in 1.x and how they are improved in 2.0.
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Source: David Hayden ( .NET Developer )