> 1. What products do I need from Microsoft to develop and run ASP.NET?
The .NET Framework (free download from MS, also included in XP SP 1) is
needed to run applications written for .NET. You can actually develop with
a text editor and compile at the command line with the SDK (also free
download).
Visual Studio .NET is the premiere development tool, but can be pricey.
There are lower cost tools (some for free [WebMatrix], but some may lack all
the built-in stuff that VS.NET has.
As background, I currently use Visual InterDev to make ASP applications
deployed on IIS/Windows 2000 Server. 2. What changes do I need to make on my desktop to start developing in
ASP.NET?
Forget everything you know about VID, Classic ASP, VB 6.0 and VBScript.
Well, *some* of your VB 6.0 (if you have it) skills may be useful, but
VB.NET is NOT VB 6.0 and VBScript is gone. The architecture of ASP.NET is
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from Classic ASP as well.
As for desktop changes, see my answer to question #1.
3. What is the ASP.NET resource kit that microsoft is promoting?
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/asprk/)
I just downloaded and installed that today. It's like an addition to the
original SDK, but not something you need to begin developing.
4. What business problems will ASP.NET help solve that good ol' ASP 5.0
could not solve?
Well, I don't know about ASP 5.0 (since there was no 5, only 1, 2 & 3), but
ASP.NET differs in so many ways:
You are working with completely compiled code (no more scripts) so:
MUCH better performance and scalability
Early Binding
Strongly Data Typed development language
You are working with full inheritance now so:
You can create page classes that inherit from a standard page template
The .NET Framework Base Class Library has over 10,000 classes in it so it is
much easier to get code up and running and you'll spend less time
re-inventing the wheel.
NO MORE .DLL HELL!!
You don't have to take your web server off-line to make an update to a
component
IIS 6.0 (which is a required upgrade) & the .NET Framework CLR handle
session state, caching and security much better.
Your programming code and your resulting HTML are written into different
source code documents so no more spaghetti code.
VS.NET (if you use it) is leaps and bounds above Visual InterDev in terms of
its stability, debugging and other features.
A rich and full set of controls that have server-side events but render as
HTML to the client.
....Just to name a few things...
Sometimes, I suspect that ASP.NET is a hoax. I think I understand why
..NET is a unifying concept for Windows-level development, but web
development is aimed at running on browsers, not the Windows OS. I guess I
can see that as the browser and the rest of the OS merge, there will be
increasingly sophisticated things we can do in browsers using .NET or other
web services. To me, these opportunities are futuristic and not worth the
cost of pioneering now. I feel web technology already has reached a point
where it doesn't need to be taken to a whole new level. It is pretty cool
as-is.
"web development is aimed at running on browsers, not the Windows OS"
I wouldn't say that at all. ASP.NET is ALL ABOUT server-side programming
and processing of your code (actually so was Classic ASP). The output of
all that processing is what the browser receives and deals with. Don't get
me wrong, the client is capable of doing some very good things, but
connecting to network resources from the client is not one of them. Also,
because we don't want to have to update everyone's pc when we update our
application, server based code is (and has been) where most enterprise
development has been and is going.
Listen..."If it aint broke, don't fix it." If you don't have a need for
what .NET offers, don't jump to it because it's here. But, if you take the
time to look at the performance gains and developmental gains, I think
you'll see that ASP.NET is not a gimmick, it is a long awaited liberation
for web developers.
But, asking the questions you have asked here is a good beginning down the
..NET road!
Good luck!
