[thelist] skeptical about the "benefits" of .NET (Visual Studio, Visual Basic, and ASP)

VOLKAN ÖZÇELİK volkan.ozcelik at gmail.com
Tue Mar 8 10:50:26 CST 2005


I'm a Java guy, I have an Classic ASP background and  I code c# and
asp.net as a hobby.

Thus, I'll try to look at the position from different perspectives:


1. Everything on the page can be implemented as an object and can be
manipulated easily in the codebehind.

2. View and model is almost perfectly separeted. In classic asp it is
really impossible, often you find yourself mixing javascript asp and
html in the form of a spagethi.

3. It has builtin XML documentation, where you can use XSLT to display
according to your needs as you like. (IMHO javadoc beats .net xml doc
anyways)

4. You can have custom controls - like tag libraries of JSP - which makes life
easier when you get used to it.

5. You can have trace functionality. You can use a runtime debugger.

6. ADO.Net is far better and flexible than ADO when you get used to it.

7. .Net framework has dozens of classes on SMTP mail relay, image
manipulation, thumbnail generation, regular expressions, file IO
(better than VB Script's IO), Threading capabilities, sorting,
pagination, repeating structured data etc etc.
Which means, you will not need to re-invent the wheel.

8. You can find zillions of samples, examples and documentation on
.net. (the amount of documentation for asp is decreasing over time,
and I suppose MicroSoft will sooner or later stop supporting classical
asp - as it is a company it will choose the most profitable way)

9. visual studio's it's intellisense functionality is really helpful.
Moreover it's almost impossible to code without intellisense (It will
be like coding java with notepad or editplus, which can be a real pain
in the arse.)

10. It can autogenerate stubs, event handlers, interface
implementations etc for you, which can be a time-saver.

11. It generates a .dll file so if you delete all your aspx files the
code still runs. Which is source-code protection. In classic asp you
"have to" deliver your source code to the client. I've not
investigated whether the code can be recovered from the decompiled
.dll. It's a level of protection none the less.


Now the cons.

1. The code it genererates is not XHTML Strict (VS.net 2003)

2. I never preferred using the design view, because is puts unwanted
code and markup here and there and everywhere.
- The way to avoid ugliness is to always use the visual studio editor in the
code mode. (it can be set up somewhere in the preferences)

3. If you are a oop programmer, or belive in the usefulness of oo
concepts, you will soon like it.

4. If you are like me, it will take months for you to like it. But
you'll enjoy it eventually.

Tutorials:

Although you do not want "I love MS" stuff, the .net framework
quickstart samples, and the tutorials on MSDN library are a good way
to start. You can find several web sites in a quick google search as
well.

You can also find several comparisons on c# versu java VB.net versus VBScript.
ASP versus ASP.net etc.

That's all I can talk about.

cheers,
Volkan.


On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:11:42 -0400, Sarah Sweeney
<mr.sanders at designshift.com> wrote:
> I'll be starting work soon on a project in ASP.NET (written in VB.NET,
> developed in Visual Studio .NET - because I'm collaborating with people
> from another company). So far in my reading on the subject, everything
> introductory I've read seems to be written by some marketing person who
> knows a bunch of buzzwords but doesn't really know anything about
> programming. So my questions are:
> 
> Can you recommend a good tutorial for VB.NET, ASP.NET and/or Visual
> Studio .NET, preferably not written from an "I love Microsoft" perspective?
> 
> What are the pros and cons of ASP.NET over classic ASP (in plain English)?
> 
> What are the pros and cons of developing in Visual Studio, rather than
> using my usual (non-WYSIWYG) editor?
> 
> My (so far brief) intro to Visual Studio leads me to believe that it
> probably outputs some really ugly HTML, as many WYSIWYG editors do - is
> it as bad as I think, and are there ways to avoid/minimize the ugliness?
> 
> TIA!
> 
> --
> Sarah Sweeney  ::  Web Developer & Programmer
> Portfolio  ::  http://sarah.designshift.com
> Blog  ::  http://hardedge.ca
> --
> 
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