Advice on asp.net for comercial programmer

[Don Grover]

Im looking for advice on migrating from asp to asp.net.
If someone can answer a few questions please.

1) What time frames should I allow for getting upto speed in asp/vb .net
from a comercial asp & vb6 background.

2) What development packages should I use, reccomended.

3) Setting up a Test Server, is windows small business server good enough to
test against.

What else do I need or what else should i ask ?

I have too start a major web based project that should take 6 months and was
wondering if I should develop it in .net

Regards
Don Grover

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Hi Don,

1) What time frames should I allow for getting upto speed in asp/vb .net
from a comercial asp & vb6 background.

Hard to say for sure. Many VB6 programmers are hardly programmers at all,
but more like macro designers. However, if you have experience with VB6 as
well as VBScript, you should have some advantage. Still, again, it depends
on how much you know about programming already (which, with VB developers,
can be from almost nothing to almost everything), and particularly, how much
you know about object-oriented, event-driven programming. Could be anywhere
from 6 months to forever.

2) What development packages should I use, reccomended.

Visual Studio.Net is the best proggramming platform. Having a good HTML
editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver helps a good bit, as VS.Net has a sucky
HTML editor.

3) Setting up a Test Server, is windows small business server good enough to
test against.

It depends. A good rule of thumb is, your development platform should
closely mimic your deployment platform. However, you can certainly develop
ASP.Net apps on any Windows OS from Windows 2000 forward, as long as that
version includes IIS.

What else do I need or what else should i ask ?

The Microsoft .Net SDK is free, and a great reference:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...A6-3647-4070-9F41-A333C6B9181D&displaylang=en

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

 

[Don Grover]

Thanks Kevin
Im just a bit weary on starting a large asp.net app in a new environment.

Don

 

[DalePres]

While Kevin clearly has little regard for VB developers, remember that in
reality a language is a language. The tough part is learning how to
identify and create solutions to business problems. Anyone can always learn
another language. Many languages, C for instance (which I have programmed
for 20 years) only has about 22 commands.

If you can program well in ASP and VB, I'd suggest getting the MSPRESS
Step-By-Step books as a crash course in .Net and the framework, and then
perhaps a decent certification book on the language of your choice, because
the cert books give a quick, broad, even if entry-level overview of the
language and Visual Studio.net.

Within a few months you'll be producing real work - even sooner if you
really work hard at it.

I would suggest NOT starting a new project in ASP. You'll regret it next
year for certain.

Dale

 

[Don Grover]

Thanks Dale
I will do some basic development on a seperate machine and see how I go for
a week or two, I still need to learn it so I can use that machine for
ongoing net developement.
I am an Old ASM & Z80 programmer but these days not worth developing in.

The global project im starting on soon will be moving between $100M and 500M
p.a., currently it's national and moves 40-80m p.a. so Its a hard choice
maintaining bad coding as I learn or developing in asp and is less portable.

Anyway Ill seek further info and have a play around for a few week's,

Thank's
Don