Preface

The web application landscape is vast and varied. Microsoft’s ASP.NET Framework—built on top of the mature and robust .NET Framework—is one of the most trusted platforms in the industry. ASP.NET MVC is Microsoft’s latest addition to the world of ASP.NET providing web developers with an alternative development approach that helps you build web applications with ease.

The main goal of this book is simple: to help you to build a complete understanding of the ASP.NET MVC 4 Framework from the ground up. However, it doesn’t stop there—the book combines fundamental ASP.NET MVC concepts with real-world insight, modern web technologies (such as HTML 5 and the jQuery JavaScript Framework), and powerful architecture patterns so that you’re ready to produce not just a website that uses the ASP.NET MVC Framework, but a stable and scalable web application that is easy to grow and maintain with your expanding needs.

Audience

This book is for people who want to learn how to leverage the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC Framework to build robust and maintainable websites. Though the book uses many code examples to describe this process in detail, it is not simply targeted at application developers. Much of the book introduces concepts and techniques that benefit both developers writing application code and the leaders driving these development projects.

Assumptions This Book Makes

While this book aims to teach you everything you need to know in order to create robust and maintainable web applications with the ASP.NET MVC Framework, it assumes that you already have some fundamental knowledge about application development with the Microsoft .NET Framework. In other words, you should already be comfortable using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to produce a very basic website and have enough knowledge of the .NET Framework and the C# language to create a “Hello World” application.

Note

Code throughout this book can be found at: https://github.com/ProgrammingAspNetMvcBook/CodeExamples

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, databases and tables, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Used for emphasis in code and to show commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

Tip

This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.

Caution

This icon indicates a warning or caution.

Using Code Examples

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Programming ASP.NET MVC 4 by Jess Chadwick, Todd Synder, and Hrusikesh Panda (O’Reilly). Copyright 2012 Jess Chadwick, Todd Synder, and Hrusikesh Panda, 978-1-449-32031-7.”

If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at .

Safari® Books Online

Note

Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that lets you easily search over 7,500 technology and creative reference books and videos to find the answers you need quickly.

With a subscription, you can read any page and watch any video from our library online. Read books on your cell phone and mobile devices. Access new titles before they are available for print, and get exclusive access to manuscripts in development and post feedback for the authors. Copy and paste code samples, organize your favorites, download chapters, bookmark key sections, create notes, print out pages, and benefit from lots of other time-saving features.

O’Reilly Media has uploaded this book to the Safari Books Online service. To have full digital access to this book and to other books on similar topics from O’Reilly and other publishers, sign up for free at http://my.safaribooksonline.com.

How to Contact Us

Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher:

O’Reilly Media, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastopol, CA 95472
800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada)
707-829-0515 (international or local)
707-829-0104 (fax)

We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at:

http://bit.ly/Programming_ASP_NET

To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to:

For more information about our books, courses, conferences, and news, see our website at http://www.oreilly.com.

Find us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/oreilly

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/oreillymedia

Watch us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/oreillymedia

Get Programming ASP.NET MVC 4 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.