Yes! It is easy! It's just like developing an application, with a web interface. Infact, it's almost a full 100% simular to 'regular' form programming, except the Forms namespace, and some declarations.

I think it is so great you can create .NET web services, and have both .NET applications and .NET web applications acces those services, and act the same! That saves TONS of work and it's easier to update. I also like XML. It is fast and everyone understands (or understands a little bit) about it, due to it simple syntax. I'm not really into XMLS schema's and stuff, just pure XML works fine.

Anyway, its faster, better, more powerfull then ANY other language used for web programming today, I'm sure! I'm so happy Microsoft developed this thing you know !

I've used all those since version 1.0. As far as web development goes, Perl was a 1st generation language, ASP and PHP were 2nd geberation, .NET is 3rd+ generation.

There's always a trade off for languages between ease of use/functions that do a lot, and enabling the developer to get down to the bits 'n bytes. .NET seems to have hit both ends of the spectrum.

I pretty much abandoned Unix about 10 years ago, and I only use ASP for production stuff. I monkey around with ASP.NET only because I can use VB.NET with it.

P.S. Does anyone know how to build VB.NET components for ASP? (Yeah... dumb question... but I need to do it and I'm having troubles...)

Bluefrog wrote: I pretty much abandoned Unix about 10 years ago, and I only use ASP for production stuff. I monkey around with ASP.NET only because I can use VB.NET with it. P.S. Does anyone know how to build VB.NET components for ASP? (Yeah... dumb question... but I need to do it and I'm having troubles...)

Hmm, I don't really know if that's possible. I'm not really into ASP, I'm more of a next generation 'programmer'. If you can load custom DLL's into ASP, it might just be possible, but don't count on it. Just write it all in .NET

I found this article, and others as well, but it looks like I can do it... it's just figuring out how now... I'm a bit stuck...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconpackagingassemblyforcom.asp - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/e n-us/cpguide/html/cpconpackagingassemblyforcom.asp

Problem is... what do you do when you have assets that you can't afford to throw out, i.e. ASP code, but you want new functionality with RAD? i.e. .NET development...

http://www.asp.net - www.asp.net has some tutorials on migrating asp to asp.net.

Any system development effort has three factors pressuring it

• cost
• quality (read quality/functionality/reliability/performance, - all the stuff that makes it a "good" or "bad" app)
• time

Typically, you get two out of three. (low cost but spend a lot of time to build quality; buy components to reduce time = high cost+good quality; low time developing plus low cost = low quality). Ideally you want to spend low time and low cost to get high quality. Asp.net's approach to this is through reuseablity.

The trick to migrating to new technology is not do it all at once, but concentrate on where you'll have impact upon your development process.

I've found it useful to think about how my app does things rather than what it does and run against cost-quality-time to see what I need to improve on. All apps perform certain functions. I evaluate those funtions for my particular app to see what can be done with new technology to mprove my development/maintenace of them.

For converting asp apps to asp.net, in general, things useful to look at are how security is handled, forms processing, input validation, email, data access, etc.. The code you put into improving one of these areas is generally pretty reuseable in other apps. Typically, these areas can be "cut out" of the app and placed into separate directory structures flagged as .net apps rather than as asp apps.

Some apps may have specific issues that could be done better to make maintenance easier - e. g. user updateable sections, multi-calendars, etc. When you look at your app, you'll be able to think of things that you could do to improve cost/quality/time for that specific app, and things that you could do within it that could be reusable.

Some parts of your asp app are just going to be solid. They don't change a lot, are complicated but work, have no performance issues, etc. My advice would be not to change them to asp.net. Doing so will have no impact on cost/quality/time to maintain your app or to develop new ones.

Actually, almost every major web and app server runs on windows as well. Certainly in the corporate world where security and performance rule. There, MS SQL is considered lame for performance reasons... not for security reasons. MYSQL is considered lame for lack of functionality.

Of the two languages, you don't see much asp because of performance and a limited object model. You see no PHP because of security issues. Java and JSP's rule there, although .NET C# is a commer.

Used to work for a Telco and have been using Unix since the 1st release by ATT, and since the first Berkley distibutions. - Back in the days when you configured and compiled your own kernal - uphill, in the snow. Learned C in a class taught by Ritchie - one of the two guys who invented Unix and C. Kernigan taught my first System Admin class.

The point is that I think I've "tried" unix enough to make the statement that Unix is not inherently more secure than Windows. It just has fewer boxes and fewer people capable of exploiting them. When it does get cracked, you're in a bigtime hurt. Both OS's have to be made secure... it doesn't just happen out of the box.

My rule of thumb has been that you see more attacks aginst windows servers. You see more dangerous attacks against Unix servers. Can't say that rule has let me down yet.

SecureBSD followed by BSD are probably the best of the lot, but they have their problems - not the least of which is in order to get that security, you cripple useful functions. In order to enable those functions, people who don't know what they're doing often apply holes in the security. MS is going this route with their 2003 servers - a 2003 web server can't run as a db server and vice versa. Also has a lot of other stuff disabled depending upon what the server is to be used for. already, we see people taking reasonably secure OS's and adding things like DX to them - those are the systems that'll see problems in the future.

Open Source is a double edged sword. Because you can hit the code, a lot of good code has been hosed up in many installations. Also, security and performance issues that are marginal, never seem to go away - they get worked around because... God forbid... we disable some feature of the open source. Sendmail and SSH have been around for over a decade and we have exploits against them every year often those exploita are just variations on an old theme.

My $.02 - flame away

cr*piecorn wrote: dpyers wrote: Actually, almost every major web and app server runs on windows as well. Certainly in the corporate world where security and performance rule. so you're saying that windows is more secure and runs beter then lets say open BSD (most secure os)

Nope. Never said that. The part you quoted was in response to your original statement that only asp webservers ran on windows and that the only reasons a company would use a windows server was stupidity as they were inherently insecure. Also, believe I noted that the BSD's were better than most regarding security. Also noted that they were often made insecure by dangerous people with a little knowledge.

Yes, every major web and app server runs on unix - but also on windows which you claimed they didn't.

The discussion was based upon your comments about windows security and functionality as opposed to unix. I won't go into the cost, the gui's, the apps , the drivers, etc. The point is that Windows isn't as dysfuntional as you make it out to be. Properly configured, it is quite secure = particularily the XP and 2003 versions. The BSD's and Linux's are also secure when properly configured. Not as many people are capable of properly configuring them.

In the corporate world, we see very little BSD and a somewhat greater amount of Linux - mostly due to the avaiability of support contacts. They tend to be regarded as "toy" OS's (not by me) because the standard distributions contain all the end user bells and whistles. Most of the heavy duty unix stuff is handled on AIX, SUN, and HP-UX boxes.

As I sit here at home, I have at my feet a BSD box running web apps and services, DMZ, etc. An HP-UX box for remote unix development (HPU-UX is the best developer unix IMHO). And a Win XP-Pro box.

The XP-Pro box is now running 4 web servers, 3 app servers, 2 jvm's, 4 data base servers, and assorted apps (AMD 2100, 1.5Gb ram). Don't remember when I last had a BSOD, but I also boot all boxes once a week and do OS preventative maintenance on all of them.

cr*piecorn wrote: dpyers, your configuration seems ok, but the xp box as a webserver mmm donnu bout that

The web servers on xp are for testing within the local network. Not generally exposed. Use non-standard ports in order to get that many to run without stepping on each other. Run production stuff elsewhere. Not enough badwidth. I do fire up apache for general unix testing/development, tomcat and other stuff periodically on the dmz box for testing things like jsp's. Cost of a virtual jvm is pretty high on web hosts, and the shared jvm's crash all the time due to other users bad code. I have a reseller account that allows me to run Win, Redhat, and FreeBSD sites, but no tomcat.

If I had the $, I'd have my own server farm, but until then, XP gives me the means to work with a lot of different stuff from both windows and unix development environments. I'd note that I'm a big advocate of the right tool for the right job. If you're developing for unix, do your development on unix. If I didn't have the HP, I'd do unix site dev from Suse, BSD, or slackware. Not that familiar with mandrake, never used it, but never met a unix distro I didn't like.

cr*piecorn wrote: .net isn't only for web use ... thats somethin else @ dpyers, your configuration seems ok, but the xp box as a webserver mmm donnu bout that, i got a small fileserver running with a pII 400mhz with open bsd as a filewall , 1 slackware box as fileserver and a redhatbox for desktopuse all connected with fiber

.NET isn't for web use only, but ASP.NET is..

Not quite sure where to start here with my $0.02...

SUMMARY: The best technology for the job...

Tegwin wrote:   I just hate it when people sl*g off Microsoft for no good reason. If Linux was anywhere near as good as Windows it would have been the OS of choice of Businesses and individuals world wide!!!!

Agreed about the hating it when people sl*g MS for being successful.

HOWEVER, not on the second point.

Linux could have come out in 1991 a billion times better than anything and still lost. MS wins because they have good marketing and they work well with developers. (Their search functionality sucks on microsoft.com, but that is besides the point.)

MS will always be a better company than any other out there because they understand their customers and they know how to appeal to them. Apple sucks because they can't market their way out of a wet $100 bill. IBM sucks because they can't relate to people, only to massive companies. Sun sucks for all of the reasons mentioned above and more. Sun is worse than IBM when it comes to relating to people, and worse than Apple when it comes to dropping the ball on a good idea.  That's all about marketing, not technical issues.

As far as the OS goes, Windows 2000+ is ROCK SOLID. The software inside is not. 

Like Dpyers said, the right thing for the right job. However, "Unix" is the wrong word to actually use. Windows NT+ (NT4, 2000, XP, etc.) IS UNIX!  Fact.

A Unix operating system meets POSIX compliance standards. Windows does that. (9x and Me are irrelevant pieces of garbage, like Mac OS 9 and under)

BSD, AIX, AS-400, HP-UX, Solaris, etc., will continue to be the OSes of preference for serious major applications because they outperform Windows. Linux will likely never reach the same level.

However, Windows will continue to dominate at the low end because it has a much cheaper cost to market. .NET has taken that to the next level.

The traditional 'Unix' family of OSes (BSD, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.) will continue to lose market share because they require too much knowledge compared to MS products. VB is successful because it is "understandable" compared to many other languages. (Historical note: VB was basically raped from Apple because MS understood it better than Apple did.)

The only possible contender against MS in the non-"super mission critical 100,000 user" application area is Apple, but they are notorious for screwing the pooch whenever they actually have a chance to do anything. Apple will fail because they cannot relate to developers (woo developers) like MS can. And they will never overcome this if their history is any indication. IBM, Sun, and HP also fail because they cannot relate to developers like MS can. e.g. The MSDE is FREE and that is a well known fact. What about DB2? Or Informix? Or whatever? Oracle is massive overkill for most things. But for the enterprise on a large scale, Oracle vs. MS SQL Server 2000 is a no-brainer.

Web applications (to date) are not seriously major pieces of software. That isn't to say that they aren't serious, but when it comes down to it, the web isn't a serious place for commerce yet. ALL serious commerce happens offline. This will change, but the web still lacks confidence at the enterprise level. When that happens, the web will change. We are seeing some changes now, but it will be a slow process. The people to look at are the ones using BSD and HP-UX (etc.). 

As for viruses and security on different platforms... Check CERT. The traditional 'unix' family of OSes have MORE exploits than Windows. Windows is a target as has already been pointed out.

I use and will continue to use Windows as my primary development platform because:

1) I don't need the security level offered by SecureBSD
2) I don't need the performace offered by AS-400 or AIX
3) I need fast and quick development
4) I need a platform where I can get tough answers quickly

For #4, e.g. I was developing an application in .NET. I reported a bug to MS on a newsgroup (as had another person) and within a very short time the SDK was released again with the fix. I don't have that level of confidence in other companies.

(True - MS does drop the ball on occasion, but it is easier to get an answer or work-around for it.)

Like Dpyers said:

dpyers wrote: I'd note that I'm a big advocate of the right tool for the right job.

Most of the resistance to Linux in the corporate world has stemmed from the fact that it is open source. Questions of liability and ownership of apps produced from an open source base have no clear answers. A few companies have created policies on incorporating open source but they are heavily encumbered by legalese. Given an option, most development managers would rather avoid the risk.

The risk is real, not just a lawyers invention. This past year, I did work for 4 Fortune 100 companies. Only one had an open source policy and they got burned twice during the year by open source.

In the first instance, they bought a commercial product built from an open source core. Although the product had several thousand installations, they discovered that somewhere in it's several hundred thousand lines of code it made internal calls to http://www.apache.org - www.apache.org  which was a significant violation of their security policies. Cost a whole lot of money and a missed deadline to work around it. Don't think that development manager will go open source on his next project.

In the second instance, a flaw in some kernal level open source code caused some sensitive customer information to be exposed. The customer is suing big time. In the past, that liability would have been passed along to the vendor, but with OS, there is none.

To it's credit, the company hasn't thrown open source out yet, but it has restricted its use to developer tools. The process to get a tool sanctioned however is pretty extensive. Most people would have to have significant reasons why they can't get a commercial product that does the same thing and why the absolutely can't live without the open source tool.

Hi,

I currently run everything in ASP, and am looking into moving over to the .NET world.

Buuuuuut, I just began learning PHP (so that I can do minimal stuff on nix boxes for friends) and there's a lot of stuff in there that I reall like (mainly the functions for image manips, etc).

So, my question is, does anyone out there utilizes ASP (v3 or.net) and PHP ?

I was thinking about this, and it seems possible, just wanted to know if there's anything I'm not thinking properly about...

one last thing, can you execute an ASP page with a PHP include file?

. necronom .

.asp pages get sent to the asp handler, .php pages are sent to the php handler. You can't mix the languages within one page. I've mixed the two types of pages within one site without any problems.

You need to be aware of the security issues with php. They're addressable, but dangerous if you don't know about them. PHP runs better under *nix than under windows (IMHO).

.Net offers more capability than PHP. Both will have new releases this year that will significantly entend the capability of each.

I love asp, but i think php kinda rocks, it has a lot of cool features, like it has a relly cool control over images, adding watermarks in images, and the email feature is inbuilt in php, php requres very less components as compared to asp, like uploading.

php is preety easyer, i dont know php, but i have seen its applications, and i think all the spiders and web crawlers are built in php, probably it can't be built in asp