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.
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