Introduction To ASP

ASP(Classic)

Microsoft Active Server Pages(ASP) is a server-side scripting  technology. ASP is a technology that Microsoft created to ease the development of interactive Web application. With ASP we can use client-side scripts as well as sever-side scripts. Maybe we want to validate use input or access a database. ASP provides solutions for transaction processing and managing session state. ASP is one of the most successful language used in web development.

Problems with Traditional ASP

• Interpreted and Loosely-Typed Code :-

                                                                        ASP scripting code is usually written in language such as JScript or VBScript. The script-execution engine that Active Server Pages relies on interprets code line by line,  every time the page is called. In addition, although variables are supported, they are all loosely typed as variants and bound to particular types only when the code is run. Both these impede performance, and late binding of types marks it harder to catch errors whey you are writing code.

• Mixes Layout (HTML) And Logic(Script Code):-

                                                                                 ASP files frequently combine script code with HTML. This result in ASP scripts that are lengthy, difficult to read and switch frequently between code and HTML. The interspersion of HTML with ASP code is particular problematic for large web applications, where content must be kept separate from business logic.

• Limited Development And Debugging Tools :-

                                                                             Microsoft Visual InterDev, Macromedia Visual UltraDev, and other tools have attempted to increase the productivity of ASP programmers by providing graphical development environment.  However, these tools never achieved the ease of user or the level of acceptance achieved by Microsoft Windows application tools, such as Visual Basic or Microsoft Access. ASP developers still rely heavily or exclusively on Notepad.

Debugging is an unavoidable part of any software development process, and the debugging tools for ASP have been minimal. Most ASP programmers resort to embedding temporary Response. Write statement in their code to trace the progress of its execution.

• No Real State Management :-

                                                       Session state is only maintained if the client   browser supports cookies. Session state information can only be held by using the ASP Session object. And we have to implement additional code if we want to identify the user.

• Update Files Only When Server Is Down :-

                                                                           If our web application makes use of components, copying new files to our application should only be when the Web server is stopped. Otherwise it is like pulling the rug from under our application’s feet, because the components may be in use(and locked) and must be registered.

• Obscure Configuration Settings :- 

                                                                             The Configuration Information for an ASP web application(such as session state and sever timeout) is stored in the IIS metabas. Because the metabase is stored in a property format, it can only be modified on the server machine with utilities such as the Internet Service Manger. With limited support for programmatically Manipulating or extracting these settings, it is often an arduous task to port an ASP application from one server to another.