ASP.NET vs. Everything Else

Anything more than code bloat?

[Filipe]

Hi,

I started to learn the ASP.NET framework a few months ago, but I stopped. Not only was the turnaround time on it longer, but the code bloat was horrendous. It doesn't seem to me like a big step up, excluding some of the nicer built-in features (FTP, for example).

Is it really worth it? I know it's a marketable skill, knowing .NET, but practically, are there any advantages?

[threecrans]

Hi Filipe,

I don't know what development environment you use, but I'll be glad to take the ASP.NET vs ASP argument (sorry, don't use PHP, PERL, CF, or any other...maybe someone else can provide some light on these??).

Using ASP.NET for me was an absolute epiphany. Here are just a few reasons (and I'll try to avoid the "new-breed scalable, boilerplate, robust web service solution blah blah blah" speak that the MS marketing folk shove down our throats ad naseum). :

• Debugging vastly superior to ASP, making it easier to create more complex code and decreasing development time.
  
• Ability to use full-fledged "typed" & object-oriented languages like C#
  
• Seperation of code and HTML. Nothing is worse than tracing through someone else's old ASP code...especially when almost everything is scripted directly in the HTML.
  
• Server controls are AWESOME...making it easy to create highly-complex, highly-reusable web app controls (especially GUI widgets).
  
• Compiled code.
  
• Full access to the .NET Framework gives ASP.NET all the power of any Windows app.
  
• Techniques like viewState and encapsulation of form elements as WebControl properties (i.e. access TextBox1.Text instead of (Request.Form("TextBox1")) reduce the amount of code overhead required to make an application.
  

Quite frankly, I have created several ASP.NET web applications that would have been impossible to create in ASP in anywhere close to the amount of man-hours I spent.

As far as code bloat, it depends on the simplicity of your web app. I have found that as complexity increases, code bloat decreases. For an example, write an app that reads records from a database and displays them in a table with paging functionality, 10 records at a time. While this is trivial in ASP.NET, requiring just a few lines of code, the equivalent in ASP is not at all trivial.

I would be interested in comparisons of ASP.NET vs other popular web development technologies. Anyone???