Professional in C# and Visual Basic Part 55. Building on the revolutionary release, adds several key new developer features including AJAX, LINQ, and a new CSS designer in Visual Web Developer 2008. The dramatic reduction in code that developers realized from the more than 50 new server controls in now allows developers the time to make their applications more interactive with AJAX, to work with data in their preferred language with LINQ, and to build visually attractive and consistent standards-based sites with CSS. . | Working with XML and LINQ to XML This is not a book about XML the extensible Markup Language but XML has become such a part of an programmer s life that the topic deserves its own chapter. Although most of the XML functionality in the .NET Framework appears to be in the namespace you can find XML s influence throughout the entire Framework including and . XML is oft maligned and misunderstood. To some XML is simply a text-based markup language to others it is an object serialization format or a document-encoding standard. In fact XML has become the de facto standard manner in which data passes around the Internet. XML however is not really a technology as much as it is a set of standards or guiding principles. It provides a structure within which data can be stored but the XML specification doesn t dictate how XML processors parsers formatters and data access methods should be written or implemented. .Linq and other namespaces contain the .NET Framework s view on how programmers should manipulate XML. Some of its techniques such as XSLT and XML Schema are standards-based. Others like XmlReader and XmlWriter started in the world of the .NET Framework and now Java has similar classes. The .NET Framework along with new compilers for C and VB 9 brings LINQ and LINQ to XML as a Language-Integrated Query over XML to the table. This is an book aimed at the professional Web developer so it can t be a book all about LINQ. However a single chapter can t do LINQ justice. Rather than making this a chapter that focuses exclusively on just or this chapter will present the new LINQ model and syntax as a juxtaposition to the way you re used to manipulating XML. The examples will include both the traditional and the new LINQ way of doing things. We recognize that you won t go and rewrite all your code to use LINQ just because it s cool but seeing the new syntax .
