Introduction
Microsoft WebMatrix is a free web development tool that includes everything required to create small and medium-sized web applications. The tool includes a web server, a powerful server-side scripting language, and a database, all of which can be used from within its own customized, lightweight development environment. From the outset, it has been designed to provide developers with an easy-to-learn, easy-to-use, rapid web development platform.
By the end of this book, you will have learned all the skills necessary to develop dynamic, data-driven web sites using the tools provided as part of the WebMatrix platform. We will cover every part of the toolset in detail and see how each can be best used to provide real-world solutions to common web development tasks. Later in the book (in Chapters 9, 10, and 11), we will use the skills learned to develop a fully-functional e-commerce web site, which includes a data-driven product catalog, membership system, shopping cart, and checkout process as well as site administration pages and other features.
In the text, I have assumed that the reader has no prior knowledge of WebMatrix, or the other Microsoft ASP.NET web development platforms. In order to follow the examples in the book you will simply need a working knowledge of HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); however, readers with previous experience of another framework, such as PHP or Rails, will certainly find this beneficial. For readers with little previous programming experience, I have, wherever possible, provided links and references to online information and books to help you broaden your knowledge.
Code Samples
Sample code from the book is available for download from the Apress web site. To obtain the files, visit www.apress.com and search for the book. Once you have found it you can download the files from the Source Code/Downloads tab.
The sample files are compressed into a single ZIP file, which contains folders for each of the chapters for which source code is available.
Errata
While the author, technical reviewer, copy editors, and many other members of Apress staff have reviewed the content of this book in a bid to eliminate all errors, it is possible that some small mistakes have slipped through the net.
Details of any known errata can be found on the book’s page on the Apress web site. If you do happen to find any errors, in the text or code examples, that have not already been reported please let us know via email at [email protected]. By doing this, we can keep other readers informed and provide corrections where necessary.
Contacting the Author
Please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected], or via my blog at http://blog.stevelydford.com. If you wish to, you can also follow me (@stevelydford) on Twitter. I’ll do my best to reply to any messages as soon as I possibly can.
If you have general WebMatrix development questions the best place to get a quick response is via the official online forum at http://forums.asp.net/1224.aspx.