ASP.NET Overview

ASP.NET is the .NET technology for building Web applications. It exposes an object-oriented interface, contributing to productivity and compatibility with .NET Framework libraries. ASP.NET applications are fast because they are made up of a combination of tags and code that is JIT compiled on first request and run in a compiled mode thereafter. ASP.NET also has the advantage that it can use any of the .NET Framework Base Class Library (BCL) in its code.

A similar term, Web Forms, is associated with ASP.NET because essentially, ASP.NET applications are built by populating a Web Form with controls. C#Builder includes tools that make building ASP.NET Web applications straightforward. Designing Web Forms is easy with drag-and-drop support for controls from the Tool Palette and visual configuration in the Object Inspector.

SHOP TALK
ADJUSTING TO THE WEB MODEL

Web application programming is different than the traditional client application development that most people are accustomed to. Because Web protocols are inherently stateless, Web applications must go to additional effort to persist user and application state. There is also the concept of running logic on the server, which puts more separation between user interaction and the rest of the application than with a desktop application. Finally, a Web application does not naturally possess the interactive and real-time graphical capabilities of the rich client. There are Dynamic HTML and JavaScript, but they take more effort. Because of these differences, many programmers have to make adjustments when moving from the desktop application environment to the Web. If you're making this transition, it may be helpful to keep these things in mind to make it easier when such strange differences between application models are described. On the other hand, what I write here may already be old hat for you, but you might work with people who have yet to make this transition. If you understand their difficulty, you may be able to help them with the transition.