I haven't bought a programming book in
awhile, but I was getting the itch to start reading something a little
more in depth to engage my head and perhaps inspire a little. Blogs and
other sites just don't offer the kind of depth that a good book can.
Since I've been disappointed with the official ASP.NET AJAX site
and the documentation there (it's complete, but offers very little
context), I decided that's what I wanted to know more about. Some
experimentation with control extenders is about as far as I've gone
beyond UpdatePanels, so there's an area I could get into.
I settled on ASP.NET AJAX in Action, mostly because it was suggested on Scott Guthrie's blog, and he knows something about the subject, obviously.
I
got it Tuesday, and I haven't been able to put it down. Yeah, it's that
interesting. The reason it works for me is that it appeals to my
curiosity about the "why" instead of just saying what to do. It offers
what so few programming books do anymore: context.
After the
first few chapters, you start to work out in your head how so many of
the things in the control toolkit work. I've never been that fond of
JavaScript, but the new framework makes it a lot less painless. I dig
it.
So if you're interested in this framework, and explore it in a meaningful way, check it out. Totally worth it.