Hybrid ASP / ASP.NET website

What are the pitfalls?

[dataguy]

I operate a website built in classic ASP which has been developed bit by bit over a 5 year period of time. We've known that we'd need to migrate to .NET eventually, but we've just decided that there are some .NET features that we really would benefit from now.

None of us are very experienced in .NET, but it seems like we should be able to handle it. We're considering migrating just certain sections of the site at a time.

So what kind of problems could we encounter if we do it a section at a time? I know we'll need to move database connection info out of application variables, is there anything else that we need to know?

[centime]

Erm, the short answer is no, not a good idea at all

Consider the following

1, ASP.net , now on version 2 (version 3 is not yet widespread), is a completely diferent programing paradigm
procedural vs OOP

2, asp.net and classic asp code cannot share session variables,

3, asp classic code does not run well in compatibility mode

What happened for me was i started out down the path you're going an after finding out more deeply what .net was about, I simply had to re write the whole application,

Actually, i still use some asp snippets in separate pages, but very few

[dukelips]

even if u use both, keep them seperate.compatibility is a big suspect

[andyll]

I moved about 3/4 of my site to .Net and the rest is still in ASP.

The Net side is completely rewritten.

The ASP & Net sides of the website do not need to share anything.

ANdy

[dataguy]

1, ASP.net , now on version 2 (version 3 is not yet widespread), is a completely diferent programing paradigm
procedural vs OOP

I understand the paradigm differences, but with this application I just don't see how I can switch from classic to .NET all at once. It's a huge, popular site with years and years woth of functionality built in.

2, asp.net and classic asp code cannot share session variables,

I thought I tested this a while back.. but I guess I was wrong. This can be a problem, but still I think it's worth running hybrid.

3, asp classic code does not run well in compatibility mode

The classic asp pages with '.asp' as the extension are still processed by asp.dll, right? I guess I don't know what compatibility mode is.

even if u use both, keep them seperate.compatibility is a big suspect

Do you mean separate as in separate web sites?

Thanks for your help.

[centime]

If your classic asp pages an the asp.net pages do not need to share anything, you could do it

If you do need to pass variables, request.querystring works

[Gibble]

We have a site that uses all three, asp, .NET 1 and .NET 2

Separate applications, but they all share the database and run on the same server. It works fine...it's not ideal, since you end up with some duplicate code since your common libraries can't be used by all three, so you need three different versions, but it all works.

You do a little hacking to allow logins to pass from one app to another, but that too, can be done through cookies and query strings and a sessions table in the database. You just have to be logical about it.

[edited by: Gibble at 9:47 pm (utc) on Aug. 1, 2007]