The book is a collaborative effort of presenting all there is to know about ASP and related issues. Of course, it fails to do the impossible, but in its nearly 1,000 pages you will find very exhaustive explanations and overviews of some of the more important aspects of ASP development. Needless to say, according to WROX tradition, the book is packed with great examples that match most of the frequently asked questions on the ASP lists. The book also includes two chapter length case studies with code covering both Legacy Component Reuse and E-Commerce. Bellow is a partial list of topics as well as of practical examples.

Professional ASP 2.0 is also a very useful tool for the experienced developer who wishes to upgrade their knowledge with the latest expansions introduced with the IIS 4.0 and the 3.1 scripting engines. One of the chapters is dedicated entirely to MS Transaction Server (MTS) and there is an eloquent explanation of the new concepts as well as features IIS 4.0 introduces else where in the text.

Unfortunately a few weaknesses make it less than a “bible”. The book devotes two chapters to ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). Although the two chapters are of great tutorial value to this complex topic, the organization of the section leaves much to be desired as far as a fair reference is concerned. Another reason for the book’s non-bible status is it attempts to cover issues that are less then central or not even related to ASP while surprisingly leaving out more essential topics. For instance the sections about Visual InterDev and building an On-line Community could have easily been sacrificed for coverage of some of the more advanced interfaces of ASP. The inclusion list should have contained:

1. Full CDO 1.2 library (heavy duty Collaboration Data Objects for the purpose of calendaring and other more advanced implementation)
2. Active Directory interfacing (ADSI, which is going to be the key new interface to everything in the new MS Windows)
3. RDS
4. Specifics about interfacing Office 97 COM objects.

Partial list of topics outside of the scope of strictly ASP:

1. CDO (Collaboration Data Objects) for NTS (a subset of the more heavy duty CDO 1.2 Library)
2. E-mail integration
3. Integration of the Index Server into ASP
4. Visual InterDev database development
5. Extended explanation of ADO (ActiveX Data Object) for database interfacing
6. Security
7. Message Queuing
8. Channels Integration with ASP
9. Personalization
10. Security and Certification
11. Index Server integration with ASP
12. Much much more…

Partial list of samples and examples:

1. Determining browser resolution
2. Multiple language handling
3. Server side calendar
4. Rerouting to international localized sites
5. Using databases with images and blobs
6. Channels setting
7. ActiveX component authoring
8. Much much more…