14 DAY TRIAL // Active Server Pages (ASP) is a Microsoft technology that allows webmasters to create dynamic content. ASP is not a stand-alone programming language. ASP scripts uses Javascript or Visual Basic scripting language to generate dynamic pages on the server side.
You will be able to make form processors that allow you to collect various data from your visitors, publish databases content, quizzes or any other server side application that requires dynamic content. In order to begin to learn ASP you must have a computer running Windows with Internet Information Services installed. On older windows platforms, such as Windows 95 and 98, Personal Web Server is available.
You can also use Apache web server with an appropriate module installed. On IIS you will have to define a virtual directory or to use the default virtual directory, which is C:/Inetpub/wwwroot. Here you will put all the scripts or complete applications made in ASP. For example, if you want to see the output of a script called test.asp, you must open a browser window and then type in the address bar http://localhost/test.asp. As an alternative, you can also try http://127.0.0.1/test.asp.
For rapid development of ASP scripts, you can use Microsoft FrontPage application. It has many advantages, for example it allows you to automatically create the HTML code for forms using visual elements or to create an Access database interface in a few simple steps. Active Server Pages provides many benefits to the web developer. If you are a visual basic programmer, then you can rapidly deploy ASP scripts.
The browsers, which receive only the HTML output, as a consequence of script executions on the server side, do not display the visual basic or javascript codes in the body of rendered pages. The traffic will be reduced and user interaction with web pages is enhanced. You should try to discover the beauty of ASP applications by beginning to test free or open source solutions available on the Internet. The open source code could be adapted to your own needs.