AJAX is the next big thing for Web developers. Some action is required, and this book is designed to offer a smooth and effective start to nearly all Web developers, whatever their background might be. An introductory book on a new technology is always a challenge to write. You struggle to learn yourself while finding out the best way to explain and teach it to others.
So I was the first person to take advantage of this book. I, myself, used it to learn about ASP.NET AJAX. And I have to say that I believe I know quite a bit about it now that I’m done. I’m not sure if this means that I’m just a quick learner, or if this really proves that the book is a good one.
Scott Guthrie deserves a huge accolade for taking the time to sit with me and explain the road ahead and what the development team learned along the way—before and after the Professional Developers Conference in 2005 when the “Atlas” platform was first unveiled. Simon Calvert offered to serve as a sort of personal guide in the platform, and Stefan Schackow provided insightful answers to not necessarily smart questions. I greedily read blogs of Bertrand LeRoy and Nikhil Kothari—oh well, and the blogs of just about all of you out there—and, guess what, found them extremely useful.
While writing the book, I also had contact with a few vendors active in the AJAX arena. I want to thank Miljan Braticevic from ComponentOne, Tony Lombardo from Infragistics, and Svetozar Georgiev from Telerik. ASP.NET AJAX is great, but these guys and their teams are doing excellent work to create components for applications that work over the Web much like desktop programs.
Christian Gross just wrote a great book to help me understand what REST is and what its role is in AJAX and ASP.NET AJAX. (You’ll read it all in Chapter 8).
The book you hold in your hands has a long story and at least a couple of lives. It could be said that I traveled three continents to write this book and nine different nations: Italy, the USA, France, Spain, Austria, Australia, Germany, UK, and Malaysia. My friends Greg Linwood and Brett Clarke challenged me to complete a whole chapter in a week while training, sightseeing Melbourne, and preparing a very special Microsoft PowerPoint presentation for a very special birthday. I made it—and it was really fun.
Fritz Lechnitz challenged me to finish off a chapter while a great tennis tournament was going on in Wien and I was confused in a storm of backhand and forehand shots from top players.
Andrea Saltarello challenged me to teach an ASP.NET AJAX class just one week after the official release. And we sold it out.
Finally, people at SolidQ couldn’t wait for me to finish the book to start delivering some great training, at last.
Who else? Oh sure, my beloved Lynn Finnel and the whole editorial team—for being so flexible and open as to push my deadlines forward beyond imagination. Kenn Scribner discovered ASP.NET AJAX with me and put me on the right track more than once. (Sure, sometimes I returned him the favor, but this is normal with friends...)
Ben Ryan strongly wanted this book and now the book is here. Thanks Ben!
And as always, to my wife, Silvia, and to my children, Francesco and Michela, who grow taller with every book I write.
—Dino
PS: As we’re speaking of AJAX, keep stamped in your mind the following words from the person considered to be the “father” of AJAX. At the very minimum, he’s the man who coined the acronym. Read the whole story at http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php.
The biggest challenges in creating AJAX applications are not technical. The core Ajax technologies are mature, stable, and well understood. Instead, the challenges are for the designers of these applications: to forget what we think we know about the limitations of the Web, and begin to imagine a wider, richer range of possibilities.
—Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path