What is ASP?

[Jordan]

Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's server-side technology for dynamically-generated web pages that is marketed as an add-on to Internet Information Services (IIS).

Programming ASP websites is made easier by various built-in objects. Each object corresponds to a group of frequently-used functionality useful for creating dynamic web pages. In ASP 3.0 there are six such built-in objects: Application, ASPError, Request, Response, Server and Session. Session, for example, is a cookie-based session object that maintains variables from page to page. Application Center Test is also available for load testing.

Most ASP pages are written in VBScript, but any other Active Scripting engine can be selected instead by using the @Language directive. JScript (Microsoft's implementation of ECMAScript) is the other language that is usually available. PerlScript (Perl) and others are available as third-party installable Active Scripting engines.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Server_Pages

[avona]

Thanks for the description , could yo plz let us know how long does it take to be a good ASP programmer?

[Lop]

Define "good". You could be a "good" programmer in ASP in one week by some standards I've seen. I'd say it takes several months and several "real" applications.

[Doe1974]

It will be interesting to discuss the future life of ASP. I have several sites using ASP scripts like Absolute Banner Manager XIGLA - Ad Tracking Software and Banner Ad Management System Comersus Cart Free ASP Shopping Cart :: Comersus and Web Wiz Forums. Some of them like Comersus also provides a .Net version. The question is: ASP will be supported in future versions of IIS? For how long?

[chili5]

I don't think that ASP will continue to be used in IIS in the future with ASP.NET available now.

Thanks Jordan for explaining about ASP, very helpful and also I now got an ASP server on my computer. It only can use vbscript but it's better than nothing.

[Xav]

You should try ASP.NET, perhaps with VWD - you can create full web applications, complete with C# or VB code! Yay!

[chili5]

Tomorrow I'm going to set up a virtual machine when I get a chance since .NET doesn't work on my real installation.

[avatarofvelius]

I will admit that the funtionality of .net makes it the better choice, and though i have visual studio, i still kindof perfer the classic asp. It's nice just being able to write it on the fly. It may not be the best way to go when it comes to jobs, but I think as a web programmer it does the job just fine .

[Xav]

I once played around with ASP.NET in VWD - tried it, page loaded fine in IE, nothing in FF... but then again, I wasn't running a server or anything.