| home / programming / asp_net / 1 |    [previous] [next] |
|
|
|
Figure 1.1. The Web server is responsible for processing the server-side code and presenting the output to the user (client).
ASP.NET is a technology for developing Web applications. A Web application is just a fancy name for a dynamic Website. Web applications usually (but not always) store information in a database on the Web server, and allow visitors to the site to access and change that information. Many different programming technologies and supported languages have been developed to create Web applications; PHP, JSP (using Java), CGI (using Perl), and ColdFusion (using CFML) are just a few of the more popular ones. Rather than tying you to a specific technology and language, however, ASP.NET lets you write Web applications using a variety of familiar programming languages.
Finally, ASP.NET is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework. The .NET Framework collects all the technologies needed for building Windows applications, Web applications, and Web Services into a single package with a set of more than twenty programming languages. To develop Websites with ASP.NET, you’ll need to download the .NET Framework Software Development Kit, which I’ll guide you through in the next few sections.
Even with all the jargon demystified, you’re probably still wondering: what makes ASP.NET so good? Compared with other options for building Web applications, ASP.NET has the following advantages:
ASP.NET lets you use your favorite programming language, or at least one that’s really close to it. The .NET Framework currently supports over twenty languages, four of which may be used to build ASP.NET Websites.
ASP.NET pages are compiled, not interpreted. Instead of reading and interpreting your code every time a dynamic page is requested, ASP.NET compiles dynamic pages into efficient binary files that the server can execute very quickly. This represents a big jump in performance when compared with the technology’s interpreted predecessor, ASP.
ASP.NET has full access to the functionality of the .NET Framework. Support for XML, Web Services, database interaction, email, regular expressions, and many other technologies are built right into .NET, which saves you from having to reinvent the wheel.
ASP.NET allows you to separate the server-side code in your pages from the HTML layout. When you’re working with a team composed of programmers and design specialists, this separation is a great help, as it lets programmers modify the server-side code without stepping on the designers’ carefully crafted HTML—and vice versa.
With all these advantages, ASP.NET has relatively few downsides. In fact, only two come to mind:
ASP.NET is a Microsoft technology. While this isn’t a problem in itself, it does mean that, at least for now, you need to use a Windows server to run an ASP.NET Website. If your organization uses Linux or some other operating system for its Web servers, you’re out of luck.
Serious ASP.NET development requires an understanding of object-oriented programming, which we’ll cover over the next few chapters.
Still with me? Great! It’s time to gather the tools and start building!
For the moment, if you’re going to learn ASP.NET, you’ll need a Windows-based Web server. Open source initiatives are underway to produce versions of ASP.NET that will run on other operating systems, such as Linux; however, these are not expected to be available in stable form for a while.
While developers had the option of getting their feet wet with ASP on Windows 95, 98, or ME, using a scaled-down version of IIS called a Personal Web Server (PWS), ASP.NET requires the real deal. As a bare minimum, you’ll need a computer equipped with Windows 2000 Professional before you can get started. Windows XP Professional will work fine too, as will any of the Windows 2000 Server packages and Windows 2003 Server.
Other than that, all you need is enough disk space to install the Web server Internet Information Services (18 MB), the .NET Framework SDK (which includes ASP.NET; 108 MB), and a text editor. Notepad or Web Matrix will be fine for getting started, and are certainly all you’ll need for this book. However, if you get serious about ASP.NET, you’ll probably want to invest in a development environment like Visual Studio .NET.
This section tackles the necessary installation and configuration of software that you’ll need for this book, including:
Internet Information Services (IIS): IIS is the Web server we will use. You’ll need your copy of the Windows CD for the installation and configuration.
A Modern Web Browser: You can use any modern, standards-compliant browser to test your work. Throughout this book, we’ll be using Internet Explorer 6.
The .NET Framework Redistributable: As you’ve already learned in this chapter, the .NET Framework is what drives ASP.NET. Installing the .NET Framework installs the necessary files to run ASP.NET.
The .NET Framework SDK: The .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) contains necessary Web application development tools, a debugger for error correcting, a development database engine in MSDE, and a suite of samples and documentation.
We’re also going to need a database. In this book, we’ll use:
Or alternatively, you might use:
Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE): SQL Server is the enterprise alternative to smaller databases such as Access. If you’re working within a corporation where your company’s data is its lifeblood, then SQL Server is the perfect choice. MSDE is a free, cut down version of SQL Server that you can use for development purposes.
Web Data Administrator: If you’re going to use MSDE, then you’ll need a tool for modifying the data within the database. Web Data Administrator is Microsoft’s free Web-based database management tool.
Do you need to install IIS locally even if the final site will not be hosted locally? The answer is: yes. Even if you’re uploading your Web applications via FTP to your Web host, installing IIS allows you to view, debug, and configure your applications locally before deployment.
IIS comes with most versions of server-capable Windows operating systems, including Windows 2000 Professional, Server, and Advanced Server, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Server 2003, but it’s not installed automatically in all versions, which is why it may not be present on your computer. To see whether you have IIS installed and running, simply navigate to your menu and check to see if is an option. Users of Windows 2000 Professional will find the in their , while XP and Server family users also have shortcuts in their start menus.
If the shortcut is not visible, then you don’t have it installed. To install IIS, simply follow these steps:
In the , select .
Choose . The list of components will become visible within a few seconds.
In the list of components, check .
Click . Windows prompts you to insert the Windows CD and installs IIS.
Once IIS is installed, close the dialog. You can check that IIS has installed correctly by seeing if you can find it within the Administrative Tools menu. If you can, it’s installed.
You are now ready to begin hosting Web applications. Although we won’t cover the configuration of IIS for external use, I will show you how to configure IIS to support local development of ASP.NET applications in order that they may be uploaded to your external Web hosting provider later.
| home / programming / asp_net / 1 | [previous] [next] |
Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints, Permissions, Privacy Policy.
Advertise | Newsletters | Shopping | E-mail Offers | Freelance Jobs 
Created: March 27, 2003
Revised: June 18, 2004
URL: http://webreference.com/programming/asp_net/1
