ASP.NET has better language support with
Common Language Runtime (CLR), a large set of new controls and XML based components,
improved security and user authentication.
ASP.NET provides increased
performance by running compiled code and early-bound calling of methods. Be
aware that ASP.NET code is NOT fully backward
compatible with ASP. The many inherent problems of ASP are being eliminated as
the ASP.NET was built from the ground up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New in ASP.NET
It would be easy to assume that you need Visual Studio.Net to
create ASP.NET pages and to use the latest languages that comes with .NET
framework but, that isn't the case. Support for the language is built into the
common Language Runtime (CLR) and the compilers are provided as part of the
freely downloadable SDK. This means that to write an ASP.Net pages all you need
is a freely available SDK and your favorite editor, which could just be a
Notepad. The new features in ASP.Net:
- WYSWYG
(What You See What You Get) editor
- Programmable controls
- Field
validation controls
- Event-driven programming
- XML-based components
- User authentication, with accounts and roles
- Higher scalability
- Increased performance - Compiled code
- Easier configuration and deployment
The
inherent problems of ASP
Active Script Pages (ASP) was built using the Active
Scripting technology, a technology originally designed to enable the developers
write server side scripting and to control the applications in a uniform way. It
isn't a technology that was really designed to develop a full-scale
applications, which is essentially what many developers are trying to do using
ASP. Now, the ASP.NET that was built from ground up is not written using Active
Scripting. ASP.NET was built using C# (C sharp) and targeted as part of the .NET
framework. ASP.NET was built to eliminate many inherent problems of traditional
ASP, such as
- Interpreted
code, not compiler based
- being
able to support only late-bound calling
- Individual
memory consumption behavior of each instance of an active scripting engine.
- Need
for relatively expensive COM objects that are aimed to get around the low
performance of late-bound code.
- Having
weak type system with just variants
Languages
The .NET Framework is made to support mainly three languages:
- Full Visual Basic, not VBScript.
- C# (C sharp).
- J-Script.
but
the whole infrastructure is designed to be language independent. The
factored, open design of ASP.NET allows plugging HTTP modules, also extends to
the CLR, allowing to plug other languages. Microsoft
Automation done using VBA code can be supported in ASP.NET environment with
minor modifications.
Better ASP.NET Controls
ASP.NET contains a large set of HTML controls. Almost all HTML
elements on a page can be defined as ASP.NET control objects that can be
controlled by scripts. ASP.NET also contains a new set of object oriented input controls,
like programmable list boxes and validation controls. A new data grid control supports sorting, data paging, and
everything you expect from a dataset control.
Web Form
Controls
In addition to creating HTML elements using the HTML server
controls, one can also use a set of controls that are part of ASP.NET. These
controls are called Web Form Controls (Or just Web Controls). You
might start questioning as to why a new set of server controls? And isn't it
duplicate of the existing HTML server controls?
In fact, the below are couple of good reasons in making this new
set of Web Controls.
- To
make it easier for manufacturers and developers while building tools are
applications that automatically generate the UI
- To
simply the process of creating interactive Web Forms requiring less knowledge
of the why that HTML controls work and making the task of using them less
error-prone.
Event Driven
Programming
The Web Controls described above allows event driven
programming. All ASP.NET objects on a Web page can expose events that can be
processed by ASP.NET code. Load, Click and Change events handled by code makes coding much
simpler and much better organized.
ASP.NET Components
ASP.NET components are heavily based on XML. Like the new AD
Rotator, that uses XML to store advertisement information and configuration.
User Authentication and Easy Validation
control
ASP.NET supports forms-based user authentication, including cookie
management and automatic redirecting of unauthorized logins. (You can still do your custom login page and custom user
checking).
Greater Scalability
Much has been done with ASP.NET to provide greater scalability. Server to server communication has been greatly enhanced, making
it possible to scale an application over several servers. One example of this
is the ability to run XML parsers, XSL transformations and even resource hungry
session objects on other servers.
Increased Performance with Compiled Code
The first request for an ASP.NET page on the server will compile
the ASP.NET code. Ability of Keeping a cached copy in memory,
greatly increased the performance of the application.
Easy Configuration Changes
Configuration of ASP.NET is done with plain text files called web.config.
This configuration file located on server changed while application is running.
This eliminates the need for restarting the server on any configuration
adjustments.
Deployment
No more server restart to deploy application adjustments via
compiled code. ASP.NET simply redirects all new requests to the new code
immediately as they installed on server.
Easy Configuration Adjustments
Remember, ASP.NET is not fully compatible with earlier versions of
ASP, so most of the old ASP should be changed to run under ASP.NET environment.
To overcome this confusion, a new file extension ".aspx" is introduced
with ASP.NET. This will make ASP.NET applications to be able to run side by side
with standard ASP applications on the same server.
