Developing Software for the Future Microsoft Platform & ASP.NET v2

Earlier this week I was involved in presenting at an event,   Developing Software for the Future Microsoft Platform , where we were lucky enough to have Bill Gates present. (Great timing, as it coincided with the announcement of his honorary knighthood). I give a demo during the keynote, showing off some of the new features that will be in ASP.NET v2.  

 

Even though this is only an alpha product, I have to say I was well impressed with it, not just its robustness, but the range of features that were already in there and working. The goal to reduce by 70% the amount of web related UI you have to write looks achievable, based on what I have seen so far. If you use ASP.NET (or “classic” ASP) you will be impressed, I guarantee it!

 

The bad news is, that, unless you were lucky enough to be at the PDC last year (as I was), or on one of the alpha programs, there is no ASP.NET v2 download that you can get your hands on. Sorry. Hang on in there though – there is a lot of information available at the ASP.NET Whidbey site. The screen shots and white paper will you give you a good flavour of what it will be like. In the meantime, if you want to know more, I can recommend the book “A First Look as ASP.NET v. 2.0”, which I used to do some of my research. You can even preview one of the chapters on line.