ASP (Active Server Pages) was for the first time released in December 1996. Ever since then it has been going through major changes and has developed improved methods of developing web sites applications for the web. There are two major forms of ASP:
• Classic ASP and
• ASP.net
In ASP.net major weight-age goes to n-tier architecture in application development and there is separation between data presentation, business logic and data access layers. Where as in classic ASP these layers are combined which leads to the development of ineffective solutions with huge architecture that are difficult to maintain. The ASP.net offers object oriented approach for software development where as ASP does not support classes. You will find that only VBScript and JavaScript were available for scripting in ASP, where as, ASP.net has no such restrictions.
The .net compliant languages like C# and VB.net, where both of them are server-sided languages can be used with ASP.net Where as in ASP only VBScript and JavaScript are available. The ASP pages are interpreted whereas the ASP.net Code is compiled .Traditional ASP is able to run only on Microsoft platforms, whereas ASP.net can run on any platform including even the non Microsoft platforms. ASP runs under the inetinfo.exe IIS (Internet Information Server) process space and this can lead to application crashes due to the start and stop process used by IIS. Whereas ASP.net process is separate from inetinfo.exe and it is not related to the IIS process isolation settings. You can find that the debugging process is much easier in ASP.net.
In classic ASP the executable code cannot be separated from the HTML thus making the page difficult to read and maintain. The code block has to be placed when ever the output is to be shown on the screen. This limitation of code is easily overcome in ASP.net by the use of server controls. The HTML and Web Server Controls created on the server requires an attribute to work. This attribute will indicate that the page will be processed on the server. At the same time it also implies that the enclosed controls can be easily accessed by server scripts. Validation Server Controls is a big boon in ASP.net. It saves a lot of time and developers need not write their own functions as it is already available with the ASP. Thus built-in validation increases the application reliability. Double validation on client and server side can be performed through this.
The use of ASP.net pages offers performance and security edge. It supports the usage of any .Net language. There is absolutely no restriction over the use of JavaScript or VB Script on your Web pages. Finally it can be stated that ASP.net has opened up a whole new programming model which blends and combines web forms, server-side controls, and data binding along with web services. ASP and ASP.net has just scratched the surface of the Microsoft Active Server Page technology, which will continue to improve in the coming years with the latest additions on the technology front.
ASP.NET 2.0 improves upon Asp.Net with the several new features. ASP.NET 3.0 is not a new version of ASP.NET. It is just the name for a new ASP.NET 2.0 framework library which supports the Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation; and Windows Card Space.
We at “Golden Web design” understand technology deeply and keep ourselves updated. The information written in this article has been written by one of our senior programmers and provides an insight on the ASP.net to a beginner. Our understanding of various business domain and technology helps us to blend both perfectly and give you a competitive advantage.