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Introduction
Like all of us in this industry, I have been through a ton of programming or framework-centric books in my career as
a developer. Without a doubt, my favorite type has always been a recipe-style book. It might be my low attention span
or simply my urge to solve problems rather than read through abstract discussions, but I really enjoy the no-nonsense,
straight-to-the-point format of such publications.
I started working with Web API back when it was still WCF Web API. I started blogging about it in the early beta
days of the framework, at the beginning of 2012, at which time the name had already changed to ASP.NET Web API.
Since then I have produced almost 100 blog posts on virtually all aspects of working with ASP.NET Web API, written a
fair share of technical articles, been involved in a number of open-source initiatives focused around the framework,
and been a speaker at plenty of events. But most importantly, I have grown to know Web API better than my own
backyard.
I had some really wonderful feedback from readers and the amazing Web API community, so at some point I
started thinking about producing a recipe-style book, as it would feel like a natural extension of the material from
the blog. A number of plans and approaches were drafted and discussed, and things eventually came to fruition last
winter, when this book was ocially announced.
It has never been my intention to write an A-Z compendium or reference book about ASP.NET Web API. Instead,
I reveled in the opportunity to use the problem-solution format of the recipe-style book. In my mind, it makes the
book a much more enjoyable read, as you can cherry-pick the things you are interested in, rather than go through the
entire book in a linear fashion.
You will not find theoretical divagations about architecture or abstract academic discussions about REST in
this book. Instead, I focus on the problems stated in each recipe and how to solve them with ASP.NET Web API.
The book dissects what is going on under the hood in the framework and shows you how to push ASP.NET Web
API to its absolute limits. It is also a framework-centric book; it focuses on how to do things specifically with
ASP.NET Web API 2.
Each of the 103 recipes in the book has dedicated source code illustrating the technique or problem discussed in
the recipe. To make it easier to follow the book in a non-linear fashion, the solutions are not dependent on each other.
Each example is simple, straight to the point, and entirely self-contained. is allows for the important bits to clearly
stand out.
Due to the nature of the format of the book, the space available for each recipe is constrained, and as such, some
of the topics cannot be covered in depth. In those cases, I lay out the basics to help you get started, and then point to
extra resources and further reading.
ere were many recipe-style books that helped me in my career, and I sincerely hope that this book will help
you become a better ASP.NET Web API programmer, too. If at least a single recipe helps you avoid some headache
that the framework might have given you before, I will be absolutely thrilled.
www.allitebooks.com
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