My question is simple:
How does one debug ASP Classic with Microsoft Visual Web
Developer Express 2005 ("VWD")?
Looming in the back of anyone's mind when you see a posting
like this on any newsgroup is "didn't this guy read the docs?"
Frankly, I "sort of did" a number of times. I feel the days of
"things that are intuitively obvious" to use long ago gave way to
"things that are clear after a 'Hello World'" example. And those
things now are gone (since .Net) and have perhaps given way
to the on-line-tutorial (at best). Still, I'm at a loss for any easy
to use instructions for debugging Classic ASP with VWD Express.
I'm not even sure, this time, what I'm looking for. With VB6 and
VBA, I fully expect "Step-Into, Step-Over, and Step-Outof" control
of execution — plus at least a Call Stack window of some sort.
But with VBScript, are these things possible? I assume they are
because isn't it the fully-compiled language system that cannot be
"parsed," if you will, in execution mode? Then again, we have the
whole IIS/ASP architecture. I've always debugged these programs
with just Notepad and a browser — and often-times, Front Page.
And I never was consistently successful getting Front Page to do
anything clever like grab ahold of an instance of a debugger or a
broswer and have them all work together.
I written soooo much in VB6. I'm spoiled by the simplicity of the
programming scenario (fat client / one machine) and the luxury of
the VB6 Development Environment. My experience from all that
work is now reduced to just so many bad habits.
Before I get into translating all that VB6/VBA/VBScript into VB.Net
or C#, I need to pay some bills! And this is getting harder and
harder to do now that my business seems to have moved over to
100% web-based applications. My productivity is in the toilet!
So, my friends of the ASP Classic and VWD Express, H-E-L-P !!!
Jim Rodgers