Chapter 2. ASP.NET Languages

In this chapter

Variables

Expressions

Program Control

Exceptions

The Microsoft ASP.NET development team boasts about ASP.NET being language agnostic . That is, it doesn't matter in which language you develop; the results are the same.

Visual Studio comes out of the box with three languages: VB, C#, and JScript. All three provide easy access to the .NET substrate, and they all produce binaries that execute similarly. The language that a developer chooses depends on personal inclination, the collective desires of the team, and which language is best suited for the task at hand. All languages interoperate with each other beautifully ”one module can be written in VB and consume a component that was written in C#.

Many third-party vendors have developed languages for ASP.NET. Everything from Cobol to SmallTalk to RPG will soon be available for ASP.NET. So if VB, C#, and JScript aren't for you, there must be some language that you can comfortably use.

This chapter teaches the basics of VB, C#, and JScript. It's a primer that can be read straight through, or used as a reference. Each topic presents a concept, followed by language-specific sections.