Jonathan writes:

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your papers on the beginners.co.uk It is impressive and a bit overwhelming for me as a new ASP developer.

Now, turn to my issues. I am a client server developer and I am to investigate into ASP development. I am very much confused of what to do, which software to use to develop an ASP database program. Please advise me on the following issues:

1. Which software should I use. I heard that the best one is ASP.net, is that true? Is it easy to use for a new comer like me? Where can I read more about it? Is there book about it?
2. How Can I run ASP.net? My configuration is 1 client machine running on Win 98. I also have a company laptop of NT 4.0 Server, that contains an oracle 8.0.4 database. What should I do first?

I have so many more questions, and it is overwhelming and confusing on the installation of the server side components, IIS4, personal web server, even before trying to install Microsoft Visual Interdev, I was told that it is an official MS tool for ASP. It is not easy to use either.

Please help!

Jonathan Vu

Steven Salmon answers:

Firstly the main focus here is not to get confused between ASP and ASP.Net. ASP.Net is a new improved version of ASP which includes much more functionality than the original ASP. ASP.Net is even built from the ground up so Microsoft have addressed some of the limitations of the original ASP 2.0 and 3.0.

If you have never programmed in Active Server Pages before and you are jumping straight into ASP.Net, you may find a steeper learning curve. Don't get me wrong, ASP.Net is an excellent language to learn and use but I strongly believe that using the original ASP would not go a miss. By learning ASP opposed to ASP.Net initially, you are not wasting your time because Microsoft have recognised the need to allow you to run ASP pages by the side of ASP.Net. This is why the new file extension for ASP.Net is .ASPX as opposed to .ASP for the traditional Active Server Pages.

So the simple understanding at this stage is that ASP.Net can be installed on the same computer running the traditional ASP components.

As a general overview, ASP.Net or ASP is not a software application. It's an environment which allows you to execute programs server side. I.e. programs which are run by the server not the client, in this case the web browser. For more information on this, please see my article titled "What are Active Server Pages".

At the time of writing this article, ASP.Net is currently in Beta, meaning that it has not even been released as a final product yet. For a general overview of .Net, please see our article titled "Introducing .Net Part 1".

If you are interested in learning to program Active Server Pages then you will need the following items:

1. A computer running Windows 98/Windows ME/Windows 2000/
2. Personal Web Server
3. A text editor
4. A web browser

Your text editor could be Windows Notepad if you did not want to endure any costs. Your text editor will be used to write your ASP pages. Once you have written your ASP page, all you have to do is save it into the required folder on your computer and then fire up your web browser to preview.

If you wanted to use something a bit smarter with minimal fuss, you could purchase a copy of Macromedia Ultradev 4 which allows you to build Active Server Pages simply using a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. This will allow you to design the look and feel of your web pages and then plug in your ASP code afterwards using various wizards and integrated features. You can also code by hand in Ultradev. Visit the Macromedia website for more details or to download a 30 day demo of Ultradev. It's a good product!

Visual Interdev is an application which comes with Visual Studio from Microsoft. It is an editor which allows you to program Active Server Pages which tightly integrates with other Microsoft products. Personally there are better applications on the market these days. Interdev is becoming a dated application now so research it before buying. Go to the Microsoft website to learn more.

To actually get ASP up and running in the first place, you need to install Personal Web Server. To learn how to do this, check out my article titled "Starting Active Server Pages".

Books/Resources

There is a huge array of books out there for ASP. I can obviously only recommend books which I have actually read. My real favourite for beginners was titled "Beginning Active Server Pages 2.0" it is published by Wrox press.

If you need to get started much quicker, why not check out the Active Server Pages tutorials at beginners. Click here to access a whole host of excellent tutorials waiting to be read.

To answer your second question quickly from above I can see no real problem with installing Personal web server. Infact, if you can get your hands on the CDROM for Windows 98, it's on there titled "Windows NT 4.0 Option pack". This can also be installed on Windows 98 computers. Windows 2000 computers automatically comes with Internet Information Server 5.0 which incorporates Personal Web Server.

Before you install any new product, remember to ensure you have a backup of your data.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

If anybody else would like to ask any questions on any subject to do with Web Development, drop me an email at ssalmon@btinternet.com. I will be more than happy to help.

Until next time, have fun.