IIS ASP is front end or back end?

[Matt]

I always heard people saying IIS ASP front end, and MS-SQL back end. ASP is
for server side programming and dynamic content generation, how could it is
called front end? Because I thought it is executed in the server, which is
back end? I think I am confused with the term front end and back end here.

Please advise. Thanks!!

[Roland Hall]

"Matt" wrote in message news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
: I always heard people saying IIS ASP front end, and MS-SQL back end. ASP
is
: for server side programming and dynamic content generation, how could it
is
: called front end? Because I thought it is executed in the server, which is
: back end? I think I am confused with the term front end and back end here.

Hi Matt...

In the scenario you described, back-end refers to dynamic data-driven web
sites. You can have ASP files without using a database. Using a database
on the back end will give more of a dynamic site with less duplication.
Your ASP files will work as templates and the data will be provided by the
ASP processor making ADO connections to the database to provide content.

When comparing client/server side scripting, front/back end is not relevant
because static HTML pages do not have a back end. ASP code is processed by
the ASP processor, dynamic content can be retrieved by using dynamic content
from files or databases and the result will be served to the client
[browser] to render along with any client-side scripting, if included. Once
the browser gets the content, the ASP and database processing has been
completed until another trip to the server to get more.

HTH...

--
Roland Hall
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[Bob Barrows]

Matt wrote:

I always heard people saying IIS ASP front end, and MS-SQL back end.
ASP is for server side programming and dynamic content generation,
how could it is called front end? Because I thought it is executed in
the server, which is back end? I think I am confused with the term
front end and back end here.

Please advise. Thanks!!

Front-end/back-end used to apply to 2-tiered client-server database
applications: the database is the backend, and the application code is the
front-end.

With a database application using asp, you actually have 3 or more tiers:
the client-side gui, the webserver asp code, and the database.

It is still common to refer to the database as the back end, despite the
fact that only one of the 3 tiers is being described. I guess the
client-side code could be called the front-end, the server-side asp code the
middle, and the database the back end. But this analogy breaks down when
other components are involved in the middle. So some people take the easy
way and call all the code that delivers the content to the user the "front
end". It's not exactly accurate, but, it does serve the purpose of providing
a short-hand way of referring to all those tiers.

Bob Barrows
--
Microsoft MVP - ASP/ASP.NET
Please reply to the newsgroup. This email account is my spam trap so I
don't check it very often. If you must reply off-line, then remove the
"NO SPAM"

[Ken VdB]

Hi Matt,

I think it just depends on how you look at it. I agree that because ASP is
server-side it should therefore technically be considered a "back-end" tier.
However when compared, for example, to a VB6 application the part that
creates the forms and presents the data to the user (creates the UI) is
considered the "client". For this reason most people think of the ASP tier
as being the client or "front-end" because it is responsible for generating
the part the user interacts with. While you could perform intense business
logic in ASP/VBScript code you probably shouldn't. ASP should be used for
taking the data and presenting it to the user in a nice way. You would then
also use it to take input from the user, roll it up and send it to your
middle-tier COM object or to your database. Technically the only part of
the process that is truly "front-end" code is any JavaScript that you may
have on the page. This actually runs inside the users browser and therefore
on the client machine.

I do all my business logic in COM or, better yet, in stored procedures on
the data-tier. I like to use the principal of moving my processing to my
data rather then my data to my processing. This is the reason I do as much
as I can in the data tier. I also find this scales well.

For example the order-entry system used by our sales staff for taking orders
over the telephone is web-based. When adding items to the order I use a
stored procedure like this

OEAddOrderDetail @OrderID, @ItemNumber, @Qty

These are the only three pieces of information the server needs from the UI.
It does not need the price. In our scenario prices cannot be overridden so
they are figured out on the server side by the Qty ordered. The same stored
procedure does a SUM to recalculate the subtotal. It then estimates Freight
and calculates the tax. This is all done server-side in the data-tier. The
data I need to figure these things out is all in my database. Why pass it
up through 10 layers of software (OLDB, ODBC, ADO) just to add it up and
send it back down?

Cheers,

Ken.

"Matt" <ma*******@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

I always heard people saying IIS ASP front end, and MS-SQL back end. ASP is for server side programming and dynamic content generation, how could it is called front end? Because I thought it is executed in the server, which is
back end? I think I am confused with the term front end and back end here.

Please advise. Thanks!!