Anonymous
Posted November 21, 2004
When looking into using ASP.NET for project work there is no better way to learn the application of the technology than through a good book that integrates theory and application. ¿Beginning ASP.NET E-Commerce with VB.NET and VS.NET¿, by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson represents a book that leads the novice ASP.NET developer through the necessary steps to construct a functional e-commerce solution that can be crafted for any number of additional projects. While the book may not answer all of the developer¿s difficult questions it definitely leads one down the path of application design and development expertise using the ASP.NET component architecture to build modular n-tier business oriented solutions. This book should be of interest to those who need to organize and display a catalog of distinct items using a modular architecture that allows item selection and purchase. Through the use of well constructed examples the book methodically develops the readers understanding of how to use ASP.NET to display, search, administer, and manage information for e-commerce solutions. By sharing a level of wisdom that can be used to develop carts with advanced functionality the book provides a foundation the reader can use to measure, select and/or improve third party e-commerce solutions. I would recommend this book to the developer who is interested in the fundamentals of using Visual Studio, and VB.NET with SQL Stored procedures, ( n-tier architectures ), where the presentation architecture is clearly separated from the business logic and data access architectures. Lastly, the book also contains detailed procedural information on applying supply chain management, the use of payment gateways through XML documents, and methods to protect page level access including site access by the use of encryption for hashing passwords. If I have one or two complaints about the book it would be that it does not cover loss of passwords by end users or product shipment solutions.
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Posted September 1, 2004
This book is the latest edition by these authors. I read the first book, and liked it so much that I wanted to read this new update. Everything about this book is fantastic! All the code works beautifully!! This book has a tremendous amount of information on building your very own database driven e-Commerce Website, and a powerful Website it is. You have options with this book to take your new Website to the very limits. You can integrate your e-Commerce Website with a 3rd party payment processor, and this book shows you in detail just how to accomplish it. But, let¿s say you want to process your credit cards; this book shows you how to set-up credit card-processing working with a credit card gateway. The chapters in this book are divided up into three(3) unique stages of Website development, and at the end of each stage you have an e-Commerce Website ready to upload to your server. If you do not have your own Merchant Account to process credit cards, you can decide to just use Stage 1, or Stage 2 for your development. Stage 1 shows you how to integrate with PayPal¿s free shopping cart, but in Stage 2, you can build your very own shopping cart with all the extra features you might like. This is my favorite book on learning how to build a real world database driven e-Commerce Website. What is so amazing about this book is the ability of the authors to simplify the learning process. What you will accomplish with this book is quite astounding, so let me just share some of the details. You will learn how easy it is to build a database, create relational tables for an e-Commerce business, populate the tables, build stored procedures, produce Web User Controls, create a layout design, create Web Forms, program code-behind files, work with and learn about Visual Studio .NET and SQL Server, design your Website for best performance, and how to handle order information. All the necessary programming code, and details are covered in this book, and there are some great innovative techniques the authors share with you. You have the option to download all the code, including everything needed to build your database, and populate it, or you can do everything yourself. This book even discusses some of the risks and threats involved with opening an e-Commerce business on-line to make money, and necessary design considerations for getting a Website up. In Chapter 9, you learn how to create a complex Catalog Administration interface that allows you to add/remove departments, categories, products for your store, and its an excellent tool to streamline the management of your store. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in developing an e-Commerce Website!! And, this book is an excellent resource for any college computer science class that wants to teach its students about developing e-Commerce Websites because it is a comprehensive outline to developing your own ASP.NET e-Commerce Website. Great Job Authors!!!
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Posted June 26, 2004
[This is a review of the 2004 Second Edition.] Open source projects offer you free source code to use. Clearly, this is one of their greatest attractions, compared to proprietary solutions. But the latter can provide greater functionality that might ultimately make it cheaper for you to go with them. Notice this dichotomy between the two approaches. By contrast, Darie and Watson provide an intermediate approach. They assume that you are a developer on a strict and modest budget. They choose .NET as the development platform and Microsoft SQL Server as the database. But this book is quite independent of Microsoft. Upfront, they emphasise the minimal cost of the base software configuration. Since if your development fails, this will reduce the lost outlay to your company. The extended example in the book is built out over many chapters. It aspires to be a fully fledged e-commerce setup. You might be able to use most of the code in your context. Because they were careful to restrict dependencies of the code on what is actually being offered for sale. For many merchants, this should still hold true. Also, the code is not really that intricate to understand. Modifications (i.e. your business logic) should be straightforward, without having to rework the entire framework. Plus, in a first cut at handling the payments problem, they use PayPal, which greatly simplifies this issue. At the cost of incurring its fees. So they give a second iteration of the code which bypasses PayPal, at the cost of more work.
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Posted August 23, 2004
This book will quickly get you started in developing ecommerce sites based on .NET Framework. This book is fun to read. It covers all the important aspects of an ecommerce application lifecycle from application architecture through order fulfillment and credit card transactions. I have seen a number of introductory/mid-level ecommerce books using .NET Framework but this is by far the one you need to ramp up. After reading the book and working through the examples, you should be in a position to build your own site fairly easily. For beginners, there are examples of design methodology and basic ASP.NET (user controls, server controls, ADO.NET, SQL, etc) to get you quickly up to speed. There is also something for advanced developers¿ the chapters on catalog administration, dealing with customer orders, customer details, order pipeline, and credit card transactions are particularly informative. This is a must-read for any would-be ecommerce developer using the .NET framework.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
Field experts Cristian Darie and Karli Watson will teach you to build e-commerce websites using ASP.NET technology. The authors walk you comfortably through the processfrom design to deploymentand illustrate a complete e-commerce programming solution. Take a peek at an actual example from the book!
You will learn to make use of third-party shopping-cart and payment facilities (especially suitable for small e-commerce operations). Further into the book, you will learn to supplement your site with greater functionality, eventually crafting a complete online shopping and order processing system.
This book teaches by example and features real-world code. Also included are updates for Visual Studio .NET 2003, and .NET 1.1. Upon reading this book, you will be able to quickly design and run a fully functioning online store. Further, you’ll learn techniques to maintain flexibility in your sites design, so it can grow right along with your business.
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Meet the Author
Karli Watson is the technical director of 3form.net, as well as a freelance IT specialist, author, developer, and consultant. For the most part, he indulges in .NET and related technologies and has written numerous books about them. He has extensive knowledge of programming database-driven websites and has authored the titles Beginning ASP .NET 2.0 E-Commerce, Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 E-Commerce, The Programmer's Guide to SQL, Professional C#, Second Edition, and Professional ASP.NET 1.0.
Cristian Darie is a software engineer with experience in a wide range of modern technologies. He is the author of numerous books, including his popular ASP.NET C# e-commerce tutorial, his Ajax and PHP tutorial, and his search engine optimization tutorial for PHP developers. Cristian studied distributed application architectures for his Ph.D, and is getting involved with various commercial and research projects. When not planning to buy Google, he enjoys his bit of social life. If you want to say "Hi," you can reach Cristian through his personal website, www.CristianDarie.ro.