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ASP.NET is a set of web application development technologies marketed by Microsoft. With it programmers can build dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web services. It is part of Microsoft's .NET platform and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.
ASP.NET aims for performance benefits over other script-based technologies ( including ASP Classic ) by compiling the server-side code to one or a few DLL files on the web server. This happens transparently in the background the first time a page is requested (i.e., the developer need not perform a separate compilation step for pages). This provides the ease of development offered by scripting languages with the performance benefits of a compiled binary.
ASP.NET compared to ASP classic
ASP.NET attempts to simplify developers' transition from Windows application development to web development by offering the ability to build pages composed of controls similar to a Windows user interface. A web control, such as a button or label, functions in very much the same way as its Windows counterpart: code can assign it properties and respond to its events. Controls know how to render themselves: whereas Windows controls draw themselves to the screen, web controls produce segments of HTML and JavaScript which form part of the resulting page sent to the end-user's browser.
ASP.NET encourages the programmer to develop applications using an event-driven GUI paradigm (event-driven GUI model), rather than in conventional web-scripting environments like ASP and PHP. The framework attempts to combine existing technologies such as JavaScript with internal components like "ViewState" to bring persistent (inter-request) state to the inherently stateless web environment.
Other differences compared to ASP classic are:
- Compiled code means applications run faster with more design-time errors trapped at the development stage.
- Significantly improved run-time error handling, making use of exception handling using try-catch blocks.
- Similar metaphors to Windows applications such as controls and events, which make development of rich user interfaces, previously only found on the desktop, possible.
- An extensive set of controls and class libraries allows the rapid building of applications, plus user-defined controls allow commonly used templates, such as menus. Layout of these controls on a page is easier because most of it can be done visually in most editors.
- ASP.NET leverages the multi-language capabilities of the .NET CLR, allowing web pages to be coded in VB.NET, C#, J#, etc.
- Ability to cache the whole page or just parts of it to improve performance.
- Ability to use the code-behind development model to separate business logic from presentation.
- If an ASP.NET application leaks memory, the ASP.NET runtime unloads the AppDomain hosting the erring application and reloads the application in a new AppDomain.
- Session state in ASP.NET can be saved in a SQL Server database or in a separate process running on the same machine as the web server or on a different machine. That way session values are not lost when the web server is reset or the ASP.NET worker process is recycled.
- Previous versions of ASP.NET (1.0 and 1.1) were criticized for their lack of standards compliance. The generated HTML and JavaScript sent to the client browser would not always validate against W3C/ECMA standards. In addition, the framework's browser detection feature sometimes incorrectly identified web browsers other than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer as "downlevel" and returned HTML/JavaScript to these clients that was crippled or broken. However, in version 2.0, all controls generate valid HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0 (the default) or XHTML 1.1 output, depending on the site configuration. Detection of standards-compliant web browsers is more robust and support for Cascading Style Sheets is more extensive.
ASP.NET 1.1 compared to ASP.NET 2
- Productivity
Talking about the developer productivity, Microsoft says that in ASP.NET version 2 there are 70% less coding than in asp.net 1.1. One of the prime example that comes to mind when talking about this is the new GridView control. It has built in capabilities to apply paging, sorting and editing. After you carte a Data Source Object and assign to grid view control (which I will explain more later), you only need small changes to do in the property box or in html code to enable paging and sorting. That's it, no code need, asp.net will do the paging and sorting for you.
- Performance
Thinking about Performance, ASP.NET 2 has included new caching capabilities Intergrated with Microsoft SQL server, called SQL cache invalidation. You can now create cache dependencies for Sql tables. With Sql cache invalidation, when a table changes, ASP.NET will get the latest date from the SQL server, regardless of output cache duration.
Also now asp.net 2 provides 64-bit support.ASP.NET application will run on 64-bit Intel or AMD processors. Also ASP.NET 2 is backward compatible with ASP.NET 1/1.1. You can recompile an ASP.NET 1/1.1 application on top of the .Net framework 2.0.
- Mobile Controls
ASP.NET 2 now has the capability of determine the output target. What I'm saying is, once you carte a web page, it will run from internet browser to mobile phone. tags will do all the rending. No need to use separate tags. ASP.NET server controls now can render from HTML to WML.
- User login
One of the common things in developing web based applications is to add security and role management. We used to create login forms and data base tables to handle role based security over the years, in asp.net 2 you don't need to crate login forms. Its build in as a web control and has new APIs to handle user membership and role management. And to store users and roles asp.net use MS access as default data base, but also it supports SQL server and active directory. Not only these, actually it supports anything, you can create your user storage in oracle if you prefer.
- Personalization
Personalization is another cool feature in ASP.NET 2. It has the capability of personalize an application and store the personalize settings. That means application can customize color, style, font and ext according to the login user's preferences. Using personalization APIs with Membership and role management APIs which I talked earlier, you can make really customizable applications.
- Portal Frameworks and Web Parts
Talking simply, Portal Frameworks and web parts are page customization done by end users. Web parts are object in the portal framework, end users can open, close, minimize, maximize or move from one part to another. Portal frame work enables to build pages that contain web parts. There are new set of controls available in asp.net 2. Web part manager (portal framework manager control), Web parts zones, and catalog zone to name few. A good example is the admin section of MSN space.In there you can change positions, Add or can Close you web parts.
- Master Pages
Master pages are all about visual inheritances. Web sites normally have same header, menu and footer for all its pages. Earlier developers have to include this sort of common things every time when they create a page, as a web user control or in old asp world as a include page. But now once you create a master page, you can tell asp.net to include that page as a master page to the new pages.
ASP.NET Development Tools
Several of the available software packages exist for developing ASP.NET applications are listed below.
- Microsoft Expression Web Designer (available now), part of the forthcoming Microsoft Expression Studio application suite.
- Visual Studio .NET or Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition (for ASP.NET 2.0)
- ASP.NET Web Matrix (ASP.NET 1.x only, was free, now no longer supported: replaced by the free Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition)
- Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, or Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 (doesn't support ASP.NET 2.0 features, and produces very inefficient code for ASP.NET 1.x: also, code generation and ASP.NET features support through version 8.0.1 was little if any changed from version MX: version 8.0.2 does add changes to improve security against SQL injection attacks)
- Macromedia HomeSite 5.5 (For ASP Tags)
- Microsoft SharePoint Designer 12
- Delphi 2006
- MonoDevelop (Free/Open Source)
- SharpDevelop (Free/Open Source)
ASP and ASP.NET is available on both our Shared Windows Hosting and Dedicated Windows Hosting servers
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