A little History and some Techno babble....
The first generation of web applications were capable of handling text and
some multimedia. The functionality of the servers that handled these
web sites could be extended by using what is called the Common Gateway
Interface, "CGI". CGI allowed the use of custom programs
that were typically written in C/C++ or maybe even Perl, and could
interface the HTML web page with back end applications on the server. One
of the biggest drawbacks to using CGI programs is the overhead that is
incurred on the server that needs to spawn a new process each time the CGI
program is requested.
The second generation of web based applications saw the
development of the Internet Server Application Programming Interface,
"ISAPI". ISAPI enabled the custom programmable logic to
now reside within the Web server's process space and no longer had to be
reloaded with each request. Components could now be embedded in the
Web page that could be written in Java, C++ and Visual Basic. Client
side scripting could also be included within the HTML page that would tie
everything together to form a working Web based application.
The third generation of Web based applications were and
still can be built using
the ISAPI extension known as Active Server Pages, "ASP", now
called Classic ASP.
An ASP page can contain both HTML code, Server Side and Client Side
scripting logic. ASP enables the script to interface to a number of
intrinsic objects, which automatically handle many of the menial tasks and
simplifies the development effort required. These objects allow ASP
to provide "User Sessions" and to allow variables to persist
across the various Web pages of a site. One of the more powerful
features of ASP is the supplied ActiveX Data Object,
"ADO". ADO provides a high performance interface to ODBC
compliant databases.
Today with ASP.NET Microsoft has introduced the
capability for applications and services to be built using tools like
Visual Studio.NET or the standalone Visual Basic.NET. Part of the
Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET makes the rapid development of web based
applications and services a reality. Although any text editor can be
used to create ASP.NET applications, the use of Visual Studio.NET
enhances development by providing a familiar double click / drag and drop
environment. Using compiled execution ASP.NET is also faster
compared to the interpretive classic ASP. ASP.NET will automatically
detect any changes to your ASP.NET pages and dynamically compile the files
if needed. The compiled results are then stored for reuse by
subsequent visits to your web site. Need help with your web based
application or service? Want to create a database driven web site or
application? WPDCorp.com programming services can help, call or
write for more information.
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