I need to switch to asp.net for company site

Do I need Visual Studio? Other references?

[kiwibrit]

I am fairly competent with Linux/Apache/php/mySQL web development. But I now have a problem with the company site - I am going have to send xml information to the company Windows server at the factory, effectively requesting information off the company database, then accept the response in xml, process the results for an ecommerce page, then send the customer's response back down the line in the form of xml.

All this is is to interact with Microsoft Dynamics (Navision). I will have a custom dll to help me - which means I need to work on a Windows web server.

My Questions are:

1. What is a good reference for reading about working in asp.net?
2. Is it worth getting any version of Microsoft Visual Studio?

[marcel]

One of the best reference sites would have to be www.asp.net

You can download free express editions of Visual Studio here: [microsoft.com...]

[kiwibrit]

Thanks, good links. I'll start playing.

[docluv]

www.asp.net is the home of everything. While you do not absolutely have to have Visual Studio you would be crazy not to get it, I mean free, nuff said.

Books, there are lots of books out there. I wrote one aimed at developers new to ASP.NET, ASP.NET 2.0: Your visual blueprint for developing Web applications.
I also really recommend the Professional ASP.NET (Hanselman, Rader, Evjin) book and ASP.NET Unleashed (Walther) as core references too.

Read Blogs on by the experts and team members, Scott Guthrie is the main guy at MSFT in charge of .NET, [weblogs.asp.net...]

Also go get invovled in your local user group, www.ineta.org will help you find one in your area.

[edited by: eelixduppy at 1:08 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2008]

[mrMister]

You say DLL, but you don't actually mention what sort of dynamic link library it is. I get the impression from you asking about ASP.Net that the DLL is a .Net assembly, in which case, I suggest you look at the Mono Project...

[mono-project.com...]

It's a cross platform (BSD/Linux/OSX/Windows) .Net interpreter. I expect you'll find this much easier to work with than Microsoft's Windows only interpreter.

[kiwibrit]

Thanks guys. I am slowly getting the hang of what is going on. I'll know more about the dll when I visit the Dynamics reseller on Wednesday.