Chapter 2. Page Programming Model

ASP.NET provides a new programming model for creating the user interface of a Web application. This programming model makes it possible to create programmable Web pages that have a clean separation of code and presentation. If you have used Active Server Pages, the previous generation of the Microsoft Web programming technology, you will find that ASP.NET is significantly richer and easier to use. Web Forms, the user interface technology in ASP.NET, provides an object-oriented approach for developing server applications. It provides the benefits of abstraction, a rich object model, compilation, encapsulation, modular design, and object reuse.

Server controls are the fundamental building blocks of Web Forms pages. This chapter lays the foundation for the rest of this book by providing an overview of the page programming model and the role of server controls in this technology.