Are you looking for a way to create dynamic, interactive personalized pages for your Web site? Active Server Pages, or ASP, may be exactly the technology you are looking for. And this ASP training will take you through the steps to decide whether ASP is right for you.
ASP is a technology developed by Microsoft to take text scripts in an HTML context and run them on the Web server to create dynamic and interactive pages. Until very recently, ASP was limited to Web servers running IIS and Microsoft Personal Web Server. But then Chili!Soft developed an ASP server for Unix and Linux.
HTML vs. ASP
Firstly, while ASP is different from HTML, it is usually written as scripts within an HTML document. HTML is a static document that the Web server displays upon request by the browser. But if the HTML has ASP scripts embeded within it, the server will run those scripts and then display the results within the page on the browser.
ASP vs. JavaScript
So, it sounds like ASP is more like JavaScript than HTML. However, JavaScript is run in the Web browser itself rather than on the server side. This gives you all the processing power of the Web server to back up your scripts. Plus, because it is run separately from the browser, it can interact with other server-side technology such as databases, unlike JavaScript.
ASP vs. CGI
In some ways, ASP and CGI are similar. You can use CGI to access databases and create dynamic, interactive, personalized pages. CGI programs run on the Web server rather than in the browser. But CGI uses an external program to do the work, which means that there is an additional layer on your Web server, which can cause more load and slow pages down.
Example: Processing a form on the Web
- HTML
While you can create a form with HTML, you cannot process it using just HTML. - JavaScript
JavaScript processes the form within the browser itself. It cannot do any interaction with non-browser objects, such as writing the data to a file. - CGI
CGI opens a connection with another program on the Web server. The form data can be manipulated in any way that you can write a program to handle. But the server has to maintain both the connection and run the program itself. - ASP
ASP allows the server to do the work of processing the form. The ASP directives are included in the .asp file itself.
ASP is a powerful tool for Web developers. If you have access to an IIS server or Chili!Soft ASP server you can make your sites dynamic, personalized, and interactive quickly and easily.
