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For you .NET naysayers, read my story and you'll see why you should move to .NET. If you relate, add your own situation.
I also admit that when ASP.NET 1.0 first came out, I was resistant and preferred to stay in my classic ASP shell. Honestly, I thought there was no reason to learn a whole new way of programming when classic ASP was good enough. So, I will say retrospectively that I don't see the advantages of ASP.NET 1.0 as opposed to Classic ASP.
I converted my wife's web site from classic ASP to ASP.NET to force myself to learn .NET, but did not really enjoy doing so.
Now, I am learning ASP.NET 2.0 and am forcing myself to code all my web sites in it and I must say, this is definitely the way to go!
.NET 2.0 is definitely worth it and it blows away 1.0. Now, I can honestly say that I have a reason to leave Classic ASP. Don't get me wrong, I still love Classic ASP and hate ASP.NET 1.0, but I am really enjoying coding in .NET 2.0. So, for you .NET naysayers, learn 2.0 and stay away from 1.0.
Now, if you have tried to learn .NET 1.0 and have gotten frustrated from .NET altogether, let me give you some of my favorite features of 2.0:
1. Master Pages - Make one page and add content placeholders and the master page is the same on all pages. While it is true that you can do that with 5 server-side includes like I used to, 1 master page is certainly less coding than 5 SSI's.
2. SQL functionality - No more WHILE-WEND Loops while going through record/datasets. You add one Database control and bind it to a datagrid control. No more annoying data adapters, datareaders, commands, databind methods, etc. Two controls and no coding is all you need.
3. User Login Controls - It's so much easier now. No more IF-THENs, comparing request data to database fields. You get5 controls that do it all.
4. Themes and Skins - Easier than linked CSS files.
5. Web parts - Add little controls to let users pick what they want to see without IF-THENs reading database records.
Bruce
[edited by: encyclo at 12:22 pm (utc) on Mar. 25, 2007]
[edit reason] no links to personal sites please, see terms of service [/edit]
No more annoying data adapters, datareaders, commands, databind methods, etc. Two controls and no coding is all you need.
Is that correct? for both connected and disconnected recordsets?
3. User Login Controls - It's so much easier now. No more IF-THENs, comparing request data to database fields. You get5 controls that do it all.
If you actually implement those controls on a real ecomerce site, using the .NET provided encryt / de-encrypt functions and following security best practices its a lot of hand coding still. The controls can do so much, but then when you need to customise it you will realise its probably easier to write your own still.
Bruce
When ASP.NET first came out, it appeared to me aimed more at the desktop programming model rather than seasoned script kiddies like myself.
However, MS Visual Web Developer 2005 Express and ASP.NET 2.0 has been the thing to grab my interest and I have spent some time with it now redeveloping my code libraries, building XML web services and converting classic ASP apps into .NET. I still use classic ASP for some stuff I do as it suits the requirements of certain projects but I am using ASP.NET for everything else.
I don't use a lot of the built in controls as I prefer to code my own stuff but master pages are a useful alternative to good old include files and a lot of the stuff I develop is data driven so I use XML web services and XSLT a lot.
I fetch data either using DataReaders or DataTables depending on what I need to do with the data within the app and have written data access classes to make it easier for my app code to use.
I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to code so I am not sure how many of the built in MS controls I will use but I may well develop my own to cut down development time on future applications.
For me, ASP.NET is more about the richness, complexity and control of what you can do in code than how easy it is drag a control onto a page and it does stuff.
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It seems like our development skills are developing along the same path.
I am also a big PHP developer too, but I am redeveloping everything in .NET.
Bruce
I was tired of looking at asp spaghetti code trying to figure out what the original programmer was doing, seeing the same code cut and past billzion zillion times, with a few typo's added in for flavor. One of the main benefits of properly done asp.net pages is it is much easier to tell what code is html/xml markup and what is actual programing logic. Not to even mention dealing with active-x headaches of trying to get your hosting provider to install xyz component you need for your e-commerce site.
I do agree Master Pages do make things a great deal easier for handling changing the look and feel. As for database related items, I never been lucky enough to have simple data binding requirements for the projects I have responsible for, which usually means is a lot of custom controls to display gather the data from the Business logic and display it.
