ASP.NET is a technology for creating Web applications and Web services from the Microsoft . It is part of Microsoft .NET platform and developed over the old technology, Microsoft ASP. At the moment, the latest version of this technology is ASP.NET 4.0.

ASP.NET apparently retains much resemblance to the older technology ASP, which allows developers to switch to ASP.NET easily. At the same time, the internal structure of ASP.NET is very different from ASP, as it is based on the .NET platform and, therefore, uses all the new opportunities provided by this platform.

History of ASP.NET

After the release of the dedicated server, Internet Information Services 4.0 in 1997, the Microsoft company began investigating a new model of Web applications, which upheld the complaint on the ASP, particularly those associated with the separation of design from content, and which will write a “clean” code. Work on developing such a model was given to Mark Anders, manager of the IIS, and Scott Guthrie, went to work at Microsoft in 1997. Anders and Guthrie developed the initial draft within two months, Guthrie wrote the original code of the prototype during the Christmas holidays of 1997.

Principles of ASP.NET

Though ASP.NET takes its name from the old technology, Microsoft ASP, it differs significantly from it. Microsoft completely rebuilt ASP.NET, based on the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which is the basis for all applications, Microsoft .NET. Developers can write code for ASP.NET, using virtually any programming language included in the kit . NET Framework ( C # , Visual Basic.NET , and JScript. NET ). ASP.NET has a speed advantage compared to scripting technologies as well as the first access code is compiled and placed in a special cache , and subsequently only be executed without requiring the time consuming parsing , optimization , etc.

Advantages of ASP.NET to ASP

• Compiled code runs faster, most of the errors caught at a stage of development

• Significantly improved handling run-time errors using try .. catch blocks

• Custom controls allow us to delineate common patterns, such as site menu,

• using metaphors, already used in Windows-applications, such as controls and events.

• Extensible set of controls and class libraries allows you to develop applications faster.

• ASP.NET is based on the multilingual capabilities, .NET allows you to write code pages in VB.NET, Delphi.NET, Visual C #, J #, etc.

• Ability to cache whole pages or parts of it to improve performance

• Ability to cache data that is used on the page

• The possibility of separating the visual element and business logic for different files (code behind)

• Extensible query processing model

• Expanded event model

• An extensible model of server controls

• The presence of master-page to specify the templates page

• Support for CRUD -operations when working with tables via GridView

• Built-in support for AJAX

ASP.NET has a speed advantage compared to other technologies based on scripts.

Here you can give some comparison. Thus, ASP is a derivative of Win32, XML and HTML; PHP – from XML, HTML, Java, and CDI, then ASP.NET – from HTML and .NET (XML and XAML, respectively). In this case, if you created Rich Media Application with Flash, it is now done using the Silverlight module, as ASP.NET. is a rich environment for developing and deploying Web-based resources. In ASP.NET, you can work with any .NET language, even Managed C + + and Visual Basic, that allows us not to think about switching to C #.