{"id":528,"date":"2000-10-18T06:15:22","date_gmt":"2000-10-18T06:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulhuntre.com\/items\/date\/2000\/10\/18\/net-this-will-change-everything\/"},"modified":"2000-10-18T06:15:22","modified_gmt":"2000-10-18T06:15:22","slug":"net-this-will-change-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/2000\/10\/18\/net-this-will-change-everything\/","title":{"rendered":".NET – this will change everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft<\/a>‘s .NET architecture is going to really change things. I have been immersed in ASP<\/a> of late, and as I work with I do a lot of research on the web, looking things up and tracking down code samples and so on. This little blog post is by no means my last word on the topic but will do for 5:00AM.<\/p>\n

The conclusion is obvious to me… there is no reason for me to develop on anything else if I can help it. With the full system due to be delivered early next year, a freely downloadable technology preview is already available and I will begin testing it fairly soon – if it is as stable as it seems then it will become the primary development platform around here.<\/p>\n

Even if .NET’s ASP+ is not stable enough for production work at the moment (and it seems to be) I have already begin the process of integrating ASP+ compatibility into my designs for ASP. Worst case, ASP will be what we work with toll the end of the year, then it all goes to ASP+.<\/p>\n

I spent a lot of years working with Linux, waiting for Microsoft to mature it’s products and offer me a compelling advantage to working on their system. I knew it would happen – they are steady that way, they keep making something better and better till it is the best in it’s class. In the meantime I continued working with Linux<\/a>\/Apache<\/a>\/PHP<\/a> as my server of choice. I limited how much dynamic code we wrote on that system making sure we did not become overly dependent on it because I knew we would not be staying forever.<\/p>\n

Generally, I am pretty confident in my ability to intuit how things “out to be” with technology – and I am right much more often than I am wrong. The immature ASP offering from Microsoft was certainly capable (it runs the largest sites on the web), but it did not meet my criteria. Sounds pompus but it’s true – it was good enough for the Fortune 500 but it wasn’t for me!<\/p>\n

The PHP\/Apache combination wasn’t right either, but the total cost ( $0 ) made it a very attractive option.<\/p>\n

With the advent of Windows2000<\/a> Server they overcame many of my objections and the platform was finally up to the criteria I had set for it – we began migrating to it. The webserver is rock solid, the system is solid and all was well. I even really like ASP now that the foundation is there.<\/p>\n

But that was just the beginning. ASP is a good system based on VBScript (other languages are available, but VBScript is the most widely used) to allow live code to mix with HTML and we have been capable of doing great things with it. ASP+, based on Microsoft’s .NET initiative kicks the legs out from under everything you thought was a limitation in web programming.<\/p>\n

It is an axiom in programming that anything you can do on one system you can do on any other – the issue is, is it practical? ASP+ makes practical things that weren’t even a fantasy before this. I find my built in limits to the kind of websites and web functionality I would consider building have all been exploded… I still have a few new ones, but they field is much bigger than it used to be.<\/p>\n

dotPublishing is currently working on some systems that simply have to be done, and they need to be done with the best technology currently available for production environments – and that is still officially ASP. However, I have no doubt that in two months that answer will be different, I think that the answer then would be ASP+ instead of ASP, and C# instead of VBScript. <\/p>\n

How should you go with your clients? I cannot begin to tell you… but if you are starting the project now or in the early stages then you want to consider moving to ASP+ so that you are working with the new guard, not the old. If your client is willing to deal with the beta server code till the production release then you may well find you are much better off, the development advantages are astounding.<\/p>\n

There problems working with ASP+ today of course:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It is still beta\n
  2. The release date is months away and might slip\n
  3. There is a learning curve, so it may take you longer to complete your tasks under ASP+\n
  4. Somewhat primitive tools (UltraDev does not currently generate ASP+ code) <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And many advantages:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A thriving online community to help you\n
    2. New capabilities that cab dramatically improve what is possible\n
    3. Much more maintainable code\n
    4. Much greater separation between code and HTML\n
    5. The advanced C# language\n
    6. Dramatic performance improvements\n
    7. No need to update\/rebuild code in the future\n
    8. Much shorter development cycle that may offset the learning curve <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The good news is that for clients that either cannot wait, or do not want to accept running on what is technically “BETA” quality server code the good news is ASP will be with us for a long time to come, and they will always be able to have it maintained and updated. Code written on ASP will not have to be rewritten all at once, so that will have an upward migration path. Of course, many clients will never make the switch over to ASP+ if they have a large investment in ASP code.<\/p>\n

      Make no mistake, if you are an ASP developer or user, then ASP+ is in your future<\/i><\/b>… you just have to decide if you can wait till then to embrace it.<\/p>\n

      Some places to look for more information…<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
      ASP+ Quickstart<\/a><\/td>\n.NET resource links<\/a><\/td>\ncsharpindex.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Common ASP+ Questions<\/a><\/td>\nDownload ASP+<\/a> (free!)<\/td>\nAnother ASP+ FAQ<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Andy’s .NET FAQ<\/a><\/td>\nFamous .NET Questions<\/a><\/td>\n20 .NET Questions<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Microsoft‘s .NET architecture is going to really change things. I have been immersed in ASP of late, and as I work with I do a lot of research on the web, looking things up and tracking down code samples and so on. This little blog post is by no means my last word on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}