ASP.NET vs. ASP

ASP.NET has better language support, a large set of new controls, XML-based components, and better user authentication.

ASP.NET provides increased performance by running compiled code.

ASP.NET code is not fully backward compatible with ASP.

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New in ASP.NET

• Better language support
• Programmable controls
• Event-driven programming
• XML-based components
• User authentication, with accounts and roles
• Higher scalability
• Increased performance - Compiled code
• Easier configuration and deployment
• Not fully ASP compatible

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Language Support

ASP.NET uses ADO.NET.

ASP.NET supports full Visual Basic, not VBScript.

ASP.NET supports C# (C sharp) and C++.

ASP.NET supports JScript.

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ASP.NET Controls

ASP.NET contains a large set of HTML controls. Almost all HTML elements on a page can be defined as ASP.NET control objects that can be controlled by scripts.

ASP.NET also contains a new set of object-oriented input controls, like programmable list-boxes and validation controls.

A new data grid control supports sorting, data paging, and everything you can expect from a dataset control.

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Event Aware Controls

All ASP.NET objects on a Web page can expose events that can be processed by ASP.NET code.

Load, Click and Change events handled by code makes coding much simpler and much better organized.

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ASP.NET Components

ASP.NET components are heavily based on XML. Like the new AD Rotator, that uses XML to store advertisement information and configuration.

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User Authentication

ASP.NET supports form-based user authentication, cookie management, and automatic redirecting of unauthorized logins.

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User Accounts and Roles

ASP.NET allows user accounts and roles, to give each user (with a given role) access to different server code and executables.

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High Scalability

Much has been done with ASP.NET to provide greater scalability.

Server-to-server communication has been greatly enhanced, making it possible to scale an application over several servers. One example of this is the ability to run XML parsers, XSL transformations and even resource hungry session objects on other servers.

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Compiled Code

The first request for an ASP.NET page on the server will compile the ASP.NET code and keep a cached copy in memory. The result of this is greatly increased performance.

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Easy Configuration

Configuration of ASP.NET is done with plain text files.

Configuration files can be uploaded or changed while the application is running. No need to restart the server. No more metabase or registry puzzle.

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Easy Deployment

No more server-restart to deploy or replace compiled code. ASP.NET simply redirects all new requests to the new code.

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Compatibility

ASP.NET is not fully compatible with earlier versions of ASP, so most of the old ASP code will need some changes to run under ASP.NET.

To overcome this problem, ASP.NET uses a new file extension ".aspx". This will make ASP.NET applications able to run side by side with standard ASP applications on the same server.