ASP debabbled
As a continuation of my recent discussion of the server-side scripting language, PHP, I'm going to spend the next few weeks covering the most commonly used server-side scripting platforms. This week is dedicated to Microsoft's platform, ASP.What is ASP?
ASP, as mentioned, is a server-side scripting platform. That is to say that it's a set of tools for building programs (or applications, which are really just fancy programs) that run on the web server to create dynamically-generated web pages. ASP stands for Active Server Pages, and it more or less does just what it says. It actively (on-the-fly, that is) creates dynamic web pages on the web server. I call ASP a "platform" because, unlike PHP, it really isn't a scripting language. ASP is designed to work with multiple programming languages supported by Microsoft, most commonly VBScript, which is sort of a shorthand version of Visual Basic.
What's in it for me?
If you use Windows-based servers to host your websites, and especially if you're already familiar with Microsoft-supported programming languages such as VBScript, than ASP is probably a natural fit for you. ASP and the Microsoft web server software, IIS, come packaged with many versions of Windows Server. ASP remains a powerful force in online application development, and Microsoft's latest release, ASP.NET, extends the functions and features of ASP in a number of ways. I'll be digging into the .NET platform a bit more next week.
