Chapter 1. ASP.NET Overview

ASP.NET is a core piece of the .NET Framework, Microsoft's new platform for application development, and is the successor to the highly popular Active Server Pages technology. ASP.NET is a complete and extensible Web application development framework that introduces a new programming model for creating rich, dynamic Web sites, Web applications, and XML Web services. This new programming model distinguishes itself from its predecessors by its component-based architecture and development paradigm. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of ASP.NET and the .NET Framework from a component developer's perspective.