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Dino Esposito

Copyright © 2011

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* * *

Dedication

To Silvia, with love

Acknowledgments

As is usual for a book, the cover of this book shows only the name of the author, but in no way can an author produce a book all alone. In fact, a large ensemble of people made this book happen. First, I want to thank Devon Musgrave for developing the idea and scheduling new books for me to author at an amazingly quick pace for the next two years!

Next comes Roger LeBlanc, whom I’ve had the pleasure to have as a copy editor on previous books of mine—including the first edition of this Programming ASP.NET book (Microsoft Press, 2003). This time, Roger assisted me almost every day—not just as the copy editor, but also as the development manager. I dare to say that as my English gets a little bit better every year, the amount of copy editing required does not amount to much for a diligent editor like Roger. So he decided to take on extra tasks.

In the middle of this project, I had to take a short break to have back surgery. The surgery increased the number of lengths I could swim and improved my tennis game, especially the penetration of my first serve and my top-spin backhand, but it put a temporary stop to my progress on the book. As a result, Roger and I had to work very hard to get the book completed on a very tight schedule.

Steve Sagman handled the production end of the book—things like layout, art, indexing, proofreading, prepping files for printing, as well as the overall project management. Here, too, the tight schedule required a greater effort than usual. Steve put in long days as well as weekends to keep everything on track and to ensure this edition equals or exceeds the high standards of previous editions.

Scott Galloway took the responsibility of ensuring that this book contains no huge technical mistakes or silly statements. As a technical reviewer, Scott provided me with valuable insights, especially about the rationale of some design decisions in ASP.NET. Likewise, he helped me understand the growing importance JavaScript (and unobtrusive JavaScript) has today for Web developers. Finally, Scott woke me up to the benefits of Twitter, as tweeting was often the quickest way to get advice or reply to him.

To all of you, I owe a monumental “Thank you” for being so kind, patient, and accurate. Working with you is a privilege and a pleasure, and it makes me a better author each time. And I still have a long line of books to author.

My final words are for Silvia, Francesco, and Michela, who wait for me and keep me busy. But I’m happy only when I’m busy.

—Dino

Introduction

In the fall of 2004, at a popular software conference I realized