Professional Commerce Server 2000 Programming (Programmer to Programmer) [ペーパーバック]

One of Commerce Server's strengths is its balance between "out of the box" Web store solutions that build easily with wizards and its extensible architecture that allows programmers to extend and customize sites any way they like. This guide steps the reader through the creation of the basic retail store but quickly gets down to the business of customization. Halfway through the book, the reader will have a good feel for setting up user profile and authentication; customizing the store catalog; configuring promotions, tax tables, and shipping rates; and setting up the order processing pipelines to meet an organization's needs. Plenty of sample code--all of which is downloadable from the publisher's Web site--is included to illustrate customization techniques.

Advanced topics such as content targeting and BizDesk integration are covered in great depth, making this guide a veritable Commerce Server bible you'll turn to time and time again. The book's authors address the sticky issue of migrating Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition stores to Commerce Server--a Herculean task that programmers will have to think about long and hard before attempting--with two separate chapters that focus on moving the Membership Directory and stores respectively.

Commerce Server 2000 is one of the most powerful e-commerce solution tools available. This well-organized guide is perhaps the most powerful documentation you will find for the product. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• User profiling and authentication
• Catalog customization
• Business analytics
• Pipeline implementation
• Campaigns and content selection
• Content and promotion targeting
• Sitelets
• Third-party tax and shipping components
• BizDesk integration
• Internationalization
• Migrating Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition membership directories and stores
• Installation
• COM and schema reference

In theory, CS2K can be used to deploy a working e-commerce site and all necessary back-end support straight out of the box. In practice you usually have to customise various parts of the product for each site deployed.

CS2K trades ease of use for massive internal complexity. To customise it effectively you have to understand its architecture and know which files support which features using what formats.

Professional Commerce Server 2000 Programming does this by taking a functional approach. It examines Profiling and Authentication, the Product Catalogue System, Pipelining, Business Analytics and so on, as if they were separate products (which, of course, some of them are).

Professional Commerce Server 2000 Programming consumes more paper explaining where features are, what they do and how to access them than actually programming anything. It also fails to tell a story, reading instead as a collection of somewhat unappetising recipes, albeit recipes for success. If you've bought CS2K you'll make faster progress if you have this book by your side--just don't expect to particularly enjoy the process. --Steve Patient