Conclusion

In ASP.NET pages, server controls are vital components and transform the programming model of ASP.NET from a mere factory of HTML strings to a more modern and effective component-based model. ASP.NET features a long list of control classes. Looking at the namespaces involved, we should conclude that only two families of controls exist HTML and Web controls. Controls in the former group simply mirror the set of elements in the HTML syntax. Each constituent control has as many properties as there are attributes in the corresponding HTML tag. Names and behavior have been kept as faithful to the originals as possible. The ultimate goal of the designers of HTML controls is to make the transition from ASP to ASP.NET as seamless as possible just add runat="server" and refresh the page.

The overall design of Web controls is more abstract and much less tied to HTML. In general, Web controls do not promote a strict one-to-one correspondence between controls and HTML tags. However, the capabilities of Web and HTML controls overlap. All ASP.NET server controls render in HTML, but Web controls render to more complex HTML representation than HTML controls.

In the family of core Web controls, we can identify interesting and powerful families of controls for example, validators. Validators let you put declarative boundaries around input controls so that any user's input is filtered and validated both on the client and server. This alone is not sufficient to certify an application as secure, but it is a quantum leap in the right direction.