The principal benefits of ASP.NET
Customers sometimes ask us why we use ASP.NET for Windows web-based development as opposed to ASP (known as ASP “classic”).
ASP.NET has been around for many years now, and is a stable and widely-used development platform. Microsoft introduced the first version of ASP.NET in the .NET v1 framework as long ago as 2002 as the successor to ASP (Active Server Pages).
The main benefits are:
Performance Improvements
Websites are much faster. ASP.NET web pages are compiled. ASP pages are interpreted at runtime which makes them significantly slower.
Improved Reliability and Integrity
State management is much simpler with ASP.NET. Three state collections (Application, Session and View) are introduced with ASP.NET, which, in addition to simplified development, increase application integrity. For example, Session states (held in Session variables) are held across web server restarts. Furthermore, previously it was typically necessary to incorporate third-party components for advanced session state management.
Compiled code means design-type errors are detected at the development stage and not at run-time.
Advanced try-catch run-time error handling allows the programmer to handle exceptions more easily.
The run-time .NET framework monitors and manages ASP.NET web applications to deliver consistent thread performance and availability.
Faster Development
ASP.NET supports object-oriented (OO) development languages, including C# and J#. In my view, this is probably the most important new feature as Object-Oriented development in C# has delivered us many inter-operable development techniques, like data abstraction and inheritance, seen in most contemporary programming languages.
ASP.NET drastically reduces the amount of coding for large applications, for example:
A comprehensive set of web (GUI) controls and classes allows rapid application development with easier to use graphical web form design and layout tools and Interactive Design Environments (IDE), for example Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Studio.
Advanced XML support. The ability to create user-definable and inter-operable XML files shared across different environments.
Improved Program Structure
Business logic has been separated from the presentation tier. This improves readability, development and support. Dynamic programming is developed using a new “code-behind model” and is stored in a separate set of files, typically suffixed “.cs”. The separation of business logic from the presentation layer is similar in concept to Microsoft’s MVC or Model – View-Controller architecture.
Integration with advanced Windows application
The ASP.NET internal structure allows Microsoft to more easily integrate other advanced Windows components, for example the Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). A seamless integration with WCF has allowed us to develop a advanced highly-customisable Windows-based Corporate Workflow product.
Support for new mobile telephony devices
Integration with mobile devices is made much simpler with the new ASP.NET Mobile Internet Toolkit. This facilitates faster development to support mobile devices, like PDA’s and the Apple iPad.
For specialist advice on ASP.NET development contact us on 01823 257873.