About ASP

HTML pages are delivered from the server "as is".

ASP pages, on the other hand, may (and usually do) have some processing done by the server before they are presented to the web surfer. This is because the web developer did a couple of things:

1. Wrote some HTML
2. Also wrote some ASP in amongst it
3. Saved the pages with a .asp extension (instead of a .html extension)
4. Uploaded it to a server that allowed ASP pages

ASP allows you to:

1. Create and run dynamic, interactive Web pages, web-based applications and database-driven Web solutions
2. Combine HTML pages, script commands and ActiveX components

ASP was introduced in Microsoft Internet Information Server IIS 2.0. ASP isn't a language, rather, it is a concept that uses programming lanuguages (such as VBScript, Jscript or PerlScript). The most popular is VBScript.

Two things are required for the successful implementation of ASP:

• good knowledge of HTML
• solid foundation in Visual Basic (or another script language)

But, don't let that scare you off!

While ASP is native to MS, there are other variants available from:

• http://halcyonsoft.com (iASP-uses server-side Java modules)
• http://www.chilisoft.com

Prior to the introduction of ASP, the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) was pretty much what you needed to learn. Perl is a language that is oten associated with CGI.

When the server receives a request for an .asp file [HTML file with asp scripts is renamed to .asp], your web server calls ASP which reads the requested file and executes the script commands it contains and sends the interpreted page to the client as pure HTML.

If you are using MS FrontPage, you can add simple ASP commands by using the Insert Script command. (iASPs can also use FrontPage and some of the more common WYSIWYG editors to create code.)

ASP enables you to:

• Enhance the visitors experience
• Gather information from the visitor
• Create personalised content
• Keep track on your site's visitors
• Create hit counters
• Secure a site with authentication
• Find out where your visitor came from (browser type, IP address, and more)

VB (Visual Basic)
ASP is often written using VB Script which is a subset of Visual Basic.