What, exactly, is ASP?

[Peter Morris]

What, exactly, is ASP?

Is ANY dynamically generated HTML the same as ASP?
Or does ASP have to be in a particular format or language?

The company I used to work for (until it went bust) was
in the business of creating dynamic websites for companies,
using our own proprietry set of development tools, which
was called Bladerunner. (You probably won't have heard of
it) Heres a website I helped to create for one of our few
customers. http://www.silicon.com/ Pages are dynamically
generated according to the current contents of the database
(updated daily) and preferences set by registered users. The
search function is probably the most dynamic part of the site.

My job, by the way, was mostly working on the database
application underlying the website, although I did do some of
the front end programming. A little, anyway. While I was working
there, I never heard the term ASP, but is that what I was doing
anyway?

I have recently been learning ASP from a book, which is
mostly about VBScript. But am I entitled to claim on my
CV that I have already been an ASP programmer for a few
years?

And, BTW, how dob you pronounce ASP anyway?
Do you pronounce it like the snake? Or do you say
"Ay ess pea?'


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[Dave]

ASP (active Server Pages) is a server side scripting language. You won't see
it when viewing a page's source code. The best way to spot an ASP page is to
look at the URL. However, ASP code can generate a regular HTML file.
It is commonly used to create WebPages which can be automatically updated
from a database.
ASP is very similar to VBScript. It can allow you to update and view
database content.

By the way, nice page.

Dave

 

[Kris Eiben]

To clarify:

ASP is a server-side scripting framework that can be written in a number
of scripting languages including VBscript and Javascript, administered
and run through IIS. It sounds like you've done the same _kinds_ of
things that ASP is used for, so you could say that you used proprietary
technology to create server-side code to handle database manipulation,
similar to ASP functionality. But, in general, if I were just learning
something from a book I wouldn't list several years' experience with it
on my CV

 

[Bob Barrows]

Bob Barrows wrote on 08 jul 2003 in
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general:

ASP is not confined to the English speaking cyberworld,
so pronunciation may vary.

Is www.asphole.com pronounced like:

duboyouduboyouduboyou ass fowl come ?

I don't get your point. That's exactly the pronunciation I had in mind ...
;-)

Bob

 

[Evertjan.]

Bob Barrows wrote on 08 jul 2003 in
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general:

I don't get your point. That's exactly the pronunciation I had in mind
... ;-)

..... A joy forever !

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

My version:

Active Server Pages are plain text files written in a particular
programming language, which is usually VBScript or Javascript. What is
special about these scripts is that when they are run on a web server,
the programmer has access to some special objects particular to web
serving. These objects are Response, Request, Application, Session,
Server, and Error. These six objects are the defining attributes of
ASP. As you can guess, they have to do with preparing and delivering
HTML files for web browsers, which is the sole purpose of most ASP scripts.

Note, they are called "scripts" because they do not need to be compiled,
but they are compiled on the fly by the server when needed. Also, the
web server doesn't have to be IIS, it just has to have an ASP
interpreter, such as ChiliSoft ASP. You may now realize that an ASP
interpreter's main job is to provide an implementation of the six
objects mentioned above.

The programmer also has access to all the objects included in Windows
Scripting, such as FileSystem, TextStream, Drive, File, Folder, and
Dictionary. Furthermore, through the ActiveX/COM interface
specifications, any other kind of software can be installed on the
server, and instantiated as an object to provide other functionality. A
commonly used set of objects is called ADO (ActiveX Data Objects).
These include Recordset, Connection, Command, Record, and Stream. These
are implemented primarily in a file called msado15.dll, and provide
access to many kinds of databases.

If you want to find out what the ASP objects do, go to:
http://www.w3schools.com/asp/default.asp

Anyone want to tackle a definition of ASP.Net?

I pronounce it "ay-ess-pea". If you were using a (graphical)
development tool, and you've never coded in VBScript, then you probably
can't say you know ASP. IMHO. VBScript/ASP can get rather hard-core.
I've been coding in it using a text editor (Textpad) for 4 years now (on
and off), and I'm still learning new things.

Shailesh

 

[Bob Barrows]

If you were using a (graphical)
development tool, and you've never coded in VBScript, then you
probably can't say you know ASP.

Minor nitpick:
So how about all those people who've been coding their ASP pages in jscript?
Or one of the other scripting languages supported by ASP?

Bob

 

[Peter Morris]

What, exactly, is ASP?

Is ANY dynamically generated HTML the same as ASP?
Or does ASP have to be in a particular format or language?

Thanks for your replies, everyone.
I now see that what I did before wasn't ASP. (It was programs
written in C on as Sun Unix system, using Bladerunner, which
provided similar functionality to the ASP objects)

Another quick question - what's the relationship between ASP
and JSP? Is is that they use the same objects, but JSP is written
in Java? Or is there some more fundamental difference? Is one
an earlier version, and the other an updated version, or are they
different things?

 

[Tim Slattery]

Another quick question - what's the relationship between ASP
and JSP? Is is that they use the same objects, but JSP is written
in Java? Or is there some more fundamental difference? Is one
an earlier version, and the other an updated version, or are they
different things?

There's no relation. They are both systems for server-side processing,
they are quite different. JSP, at its simplest level, is a server-side
scripting environment like ASP, but the scripting language is Java.
Not JavaScript, but full-fledged Java. Any environment that supports
JSP also will support Java applets, and other parts of the J2EE world.
That goes *far* beyond what ASP allows.

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

Whoops, my bad. I should have said "in any of the ASP supported
languages using the ASP objects". I've gotten so used to using VBScript...

S

 

[Shailesh Humbad]

Both JSP and ASP are scripting engines that run on a web server and
whose main intent is to produce HTML files for web browsers. Otherwise,
they are different, unrelated systems. JSP is different because it's
scripts are written in Java, which is a language that is
object-oriented, strongly typed, and supports exception handling and
garbage collection. These features make the language more robust for
programmers, but also create a higher learning curve. Both JSP and ASP
expose similar objects for serving web pages and have similar
functionality. JSP is also different because it's reference
implementation (Apache Tomcat - http://jakarta.apache.org), is open
source and free.

I've looked into JSP, but never used it. If you want JSP specific info,
try a JSP newsgroup.

S.

 

[Liza]

If i wanted to create a vbscript that collects information from the
website visitor and i wanted to manipulate that information with a
specific function/process, would i need to submit that
function/process to the IIS so that it can be used by the script?

 

[Bob Barrows]

uuuummmm - yes.

If i wanted to create a vbscript that collects information from the
website visitor and i wanted to manipulate that information with a
specific function/process, would i need to submit that
function/process to the IIS so that it can be used by the script?