ASP.NET Basics (part 1): Nothing But .Net - Checking Out The Menu

Server-side scripting is not new. It's been around for quite a while on the Web, and almost every major Web site uses some amount of server-side scripting. Amazon.com uses it to find the book you're looking for, Yahoo! uses it to store your personal preferences, and GeoCities uses it to generate page statistics. Despite this, you're probably wondering why server-side scripting is such a big deal - after all, you've probably seen what a few simple JavaScripts can do. The reason for its popularity is very simple - JavaScript runs within a client application, usually the browser, and as such can only access resources, such as the current date and time, on the client machine. Since server-side scripts run on the Web server, they can be used to access server resources such as databases, system variables and other useful thingamajigs.

Just as there are different flavors of client-side scripting, there are different languages that can be used on the server as well. Here's a quick list of some of the more popular ones:

* In the early days of the WWW, Perl (http://www.perl.com) was the most popular language for scripting activities on the server. For the uninformed, Perl (an acronym for Practical Extraction and Report Language) is an interpreted language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from these files, and printing reports based on that information. While not many languages can compare with the pattern-matching capabilities of a well-written Perl script, newbies will find this language a touch intimidating when they are starting out!

* Next up, ColdFusion, currently maintained by Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com). ColdFusion syntax bears a remarkable resemblance to HTML, making it very easy for a budding web programmer to migrate to it. At the moment, it's available for both Windows NT and Linux. The only drawback: it ain't free!

* Python (http://www.python.org) is an interpreted, object-oriented high-level scripting language for UNIX, often compared to Tcl, Perl or Java. It has modules, classes and interfaces to system calls, and is also extensible. It has been ported to Windows, DOS, OS/2 and the Macintosh, and has a devout following in the UNIX community.

* One of today's most popular open-source languages for Web scripting is PHP (http://www.php.net). Very easy to use, it's free, widely available for UNIX and Windows systems, and particularly strong in the areas of database access, XML parsing and file management, and comes with large code repository of free, open-source classes in the form of the PEAR repository.

* Active Server Pages, now aptly referred to as so-called "classic" ASP. Microsoft first introduced ASP in its IIS Web server, for the purpose of Web application programming and development. While ASP currently runs only on the Windows server platform, there have been successful attempts to port it to the UNIX platform using third party tools (such as Chilisoft ASP).

Sadly, the days of "classic" ASP are numbered. And with good reason - with ASP.NET and the much touted .NET framework, Microsoft aims to develop a "unified Web development platform that provides the services necessary for developers to build enterprise-class Web applications" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/ht
ml/cpconintroductiontoasp.asp).

In case you didn't quite understand that definition, don't worry about it - you're not the only one.

Put in plainer English, ASP.NET is a .NET-based development environment, which you can use to create distributed Web-based applications. These applications can be written in any .NET compatible language (including C#, Visual Basic.NET, and JScript.NET). While you can also use regular ASP code in your ASP.NET applications, it is far better to start from scratch (as it
were) and leverage off the new .NET programming model, since that model includes a number of other benefits.

Let's take a closer look.

ASP.NET Basics (part 1): Nothing But .Net

Looking for a gentle introduction to ASP.NET and the .NET Framework? Today's your lucky day - this first segment of our multi-part ASP.NET tutorial introduces you to .NET and gets you started with ASP.NET and the .NET Framework with some simple examples and explanations. Included in this article: the anatomy of an ASP.NET program, an introduction to server controls, and some basic things you should know about C# variables.

If you're a Web programmer, you're probably already well versed with the intricacies of client-side scripting. But where there's a client, there must be a server...and where there is a server, there must be ASP.NET.

If you deal with Microsoft technologies, then you've probably already heard about .NET - it's the latest, greatest software platform to emerge from Redmond, and it promises to revolutionize the way applications work with each other. Built entirely on the premise that the Internet will serve as both the distribution medium and the basic architecture for new software applications, .NET allows applications written in different languages to talk to each other, share information and ultimately keep you more plugged-in.

It's a powerful concept...and, like all powerful concepts, it requires a fair amount of introspection to understand how it works. That's where this series of tutorials comes in - over the next few articles, I plan to bring you gently into the world of ASP.NET, providing you with theoretical explanations and code samples (lots of code samples) to help you get your feet wet with ASP.NET and learn how to leverage off it when building your next

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