This past year I had the pleasure of being asked by Jim Minatel at Wrox to write a Wrox Blox covering the basics of jQuery for ASP.Net Developers.  Having co-authored 2 previous books, I realized that writing a book, regardless of the size, is a lot of work, but something that I also find gratifying once you have a finished product.  Over the last 2 years, I had gotten more and more into jQuery and really loved its simplicity and power, and thought that this would be a great opportunity to share some of the knowledge I had gathered.

For those that are not familiar with the term, a Wrox Blox is a short e-book (30+ pages) which covers a narrow topic.  They are not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of a topic, but rather to cover one particular aspect of what is often a much broader subject matter.  Because of their narrower focus and the fact that they are only available as e-books, Wrox is able to keep the cost of the Wrox Blox very low.  Wrox Blox generally include a lot of code examples rather than being a purely theoretical discussion of a topic.

After a couple of months, several missed deadlines and a page count that greatly exceeded what was originally requested, I finally finished the Wrox Blox which was subsequently published last September.  I am very pleased with the final product which comes in at 66 pages and is a great introduction to jQuery and ASP.Net.  jQuery for ASP.Net Developers  includes sections on the jQuery API and its usage, and on using jQuery with ASP.Net WebForms and ASP.Net MVC frameworks.  I had a great time writing the book and like all writing assignments of this size, it really forced me to dig into jQuery much deeper than I had previously.  It also gave me a greater appreciation for why Microsoft chose to ship jQuery with Visual Studio 2010.

Why you shouldn’t learn MVC Earlier today Rob Connery posted about why he thinks You Should Learn MVC.  Rob is a great guy and we always have lively discussions whenever we meet at conferences.  I was in the middle of writing a long comment on his blog when I decided it might be better as it’s own post.

I have to say Rob, once again, another great post!  Another great use of straw man arguments and red herrings.  Come...