What is ASP.NET?
ASP.NET combines unprecedented developer productivity with performance, reliability, and deployment. Developer Productivity ASP.NET helps you deliver real world Web applications in record time. • Easy Programming Model. ASP.NET makes building real world Web applications dramatically easier. ASP.NET server controls enable an HTML-like style of declarative programming that let you build great pages with far less code than with classic ASP. Displaying data, validating user input, and uploading files are all amazingly easy. Best of all, ASP.NET pages work in all browsers — including Netscape, Opera, AOL, and Internet Explorer. • Flexible Language Options . ASP.NET lets you leverage your current programming language skills. Unlike classic ASP, which supports only interpreted VBScript and JScript, ASP.NET now supports more than 25 .NET languages (including built-in support for VB.NET, C#, and JScript.NET — no tool required), giving you unprecedented flexibility in your choice of language.
ASP.NET is a programming framework built on the common language runtime that can be used on a server to build powerful Web applications. ASP.NET offers several important advantages over previous Web development models: • Enhanced Performance. ASP.NET is compiled common language runtime code running on the server. Unlike its interpreted predecessors, ASP.NET can take advantage of early binding, just-in-time compilation, native optimization, and caching services right out of the box. This amounts to dramatically better performance before you ever write a line of code. • World-Class Tool Support. The ASP.NET framework is complemented by a rich toolbox and designer in the Visual Studio integrated development environment. WYSIWYG editing, drag-and-drop server controls, and automatic deployment are just a few of the features this powerful tool provides. • Power and Flexibility. Because ASP.
Dave’s Answer: Y’know, a lot of people talk about ASP.NET, but it’s surprisingly hard to find a clear and coherent definition of exactly what it is and how it fits into the world of Web development. Fortunately, Wikipedia has a very nice definition: “ASP.NET is a set of web development technologies marketed by Microsoft. Programmers can use it to 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 technology.” The Wikipedia entry continues with: “Even though ASP.NET takes its name from Microsoft’s old web development technology, ASP (Active Server Pages), the two differ significantly. Microsoft has completely rebuilt ASP.NET, based on the CLR shared by all Microsoft .NET applications. Programmers can write ASP.NET code using any of the different programming languages supported by the .NET framework, usually (proprietary) Visual Basic.NET, JScript .
ASP.NET is a server-side technology for creating dynamic, standards-based Web sites and services that are accessible across multiple platforms including mobile devices. It is part of the .NET-based environment; you can author applications in any .NET compatible language, including Visual Basic .NET, C#, and J#. Additionally, the entire .NET Framework class library is available to any ASP.NET application. Developers can easily access the benefits of these technologies, which include the managed common language runtime environment, type safety, inheritance, and so on.
