Web Application Development Using Microsoft Visual InterDev 6 (Microsoft Mastering)

The authors structure their content as a self-paced class, in which they present lots of raw documentation of Visual InterDev and its capabilities in the form of detailed procedures, lists of options, code samples, and screen shots. They manage to avoid the droning style that characterizes many books about development environments, however, by interspersing their descriptive information with lab activities. The activities would be better if they allowed more variation--sometimes they're just explicit recipes that must be followed exactly--but they do provide readers with a hands-on introduction to features that might otherwise prove baffling.

The description-and-exercise approach extends beyond the authors' coverage of the Visual InterDev environment itself. Readers learn how to use VBScript--both for client-side scripting tasks and for creating Active Server Pages (ASP)--in the same manner. Coverage of the language isn't comprehensive, and neither is coverage of Component Object Model (COM) component creation, but it's enough to introduce readers to Visual InterDev's advanced features. More advanced references can build on the knowledge readers acquire from this book. --David Wall

Topics covered: Visual InterDev 6, VBScript on the client and server sides, Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft data-access technologies, Component Object Model (COM) components, and Microsoft Transaction Server.