The New Web

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During the last couple of years , a strong trend in moving traditional desktop applications to Web-based applications has been a hot topic. The ability to create and deploy Web-based applications that afforded the user the same rich experience found in desktop applications has never been a simple task. As new technologies begin to emerge, such as advanced scripting support and DHTML, the ability to create a powerful Web-based UI is starting to take hold. Application users expect not only a functional application, but the application itself must also be aesthetically pleasing.

The main reason to switch to Web-based applications is the ease of deployment. Consider a company with 10,000 employees nationwide . Do you want to install the newest software on 10,000+ computers? NO! By moving applications to an intranet/extranet development and deployment model, there is no need to install client code on an end-users computer. Changes in the application are immediately available to all end users with timely delays associated with traditional application rollout.

The largest drawback to typical Web development was performance. Because ASP pages were not compiled code, the Web server had to interpret the ASP code. With the advent of ASP.NET, ASP.NET pages are compiled .NET components and, as such, execute at native speed. ASP.NET allows developers to use any .NET targeted language, such as C#, VB.NET, Managed C++ and even COBOL. (Yes, I've seen an ASP.NET page written in COBOL.)

I l @ ve RuBoard