Newbie to ASP.NET

[Peter Mount]

Hi

I've studied Classic ASP in my studies but I haven't covered ASP.NET. Is
there a lot of difference between the two?

Is Web Matrix good to use for that (I can't afford to pay for software
right now)? I read it has it's own web server for testing without
needing IIS. Is that a good idea?

Is http://www.w3schools.com the best place for me to get up to speed on
ASP.NET? What's a good book?

Thanks

Peter Mount
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Riki]

Hi

I've studied Classic ASP in my studies but I haven't covered ASP.NET.
Is there a lot of difference between the two?

Quite. The programming philosophy is different.

Is Web Matrix good to use for that (I can't afford to pay for software
right now)?

I have developed with Web Matrix a lot, and it works fine.
You may miss debugging capabilities and Intellisense (autocomplete).

If you want to use ASP.NET for new websites, and not for
maintaining existing ones, I suggest going directly for ASP.NET 2.0.

You can download the Visual Studio 2005 Web Express Beta1
(which is free) here:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/default.aspx
It's much better than Web Matrix.

I read it has it's own web server for testing without
needing IIS. Is that a good idea?

It's easy for testing, but you should still test on IIS before publishing.

Is http://www.w3schools.com the best place for me to get up to speed
on ASP.NET? What's a good book?

w3schools is good.
www.asp.net has some good tutorials as well. The one for ASP.NET 2.0 is
here:
http://beta.asp.net/quickstart/aspnet/doc/default.aspx

 

[Yunus Emre ALPÖZEN]

I can advise you to start study from quickstart examples which is available
in SDK...

 

[Guest]

My advice for quick start tutorial:
http://samples.gotdotnet.com/quickstart/aspplus/

 

[Kevin Spencer]

I've studied Classic ASP in my studies but I haven't covered ASP.NET. Is

there a lot of difference between the two?

Yes. quite a lot. To begin with ASP is procedural, and ASP.Net is
object-oriented and event-driven. ASP uses scripting, while ASP.Net uses a
fully-compiled language. There are a few similarities. There are many
differences.

Is Web Matrix good to use for that (I can't afford to pay for software
right now)? I read it has it's own web server for testing without needing
IIS. Is that a good idea?

Well, beggars can't be choosers. You can write an ASP.Net application with
NotePad, if you wish. Web Matrix is certainly worth what you pay for it, and
a heck of a lot better than NotePad!

Is http://www.w3schools.com the best place for me to get up to speed on
ASP.NET? What's a good book?

How about the FREE Microsoft .Net SDK?

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

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Neither a follower nor a lender be.

 

[Alan Silver]

Hi

Hi Peter, I'm just a few weeks ahead of you, so hopefully my experience
will be of use.

I've studied Classic ASP in my studies but I haven't covered ASP.NET.
Is there a lot of difference between the two?

It would be a better question to ask if there's much similarity!! Forget
most of what you learnt in ASP and start again. If you've done any
Windows programming (applications, not web pages) then you might find
that a better mind set to use than ASP.

Is Web Matrix good to use for that (I can't afford to pay for software
right now)? I read it has it's own web server for testing without
needing IIS. Is that a good idea?

It's pretty good, but you can't beat hand-coding to get the feel for
what's going on. Sure it takes longer and is more prone to errors, but
the fact of having to do it all by hand makes you look at it more
closely. When you just click a couple of buttons and a whole wad of code
is written for you, you don't really get a feel for what is happening.

Also, as you are starting out now, it is worth taking the time to learn
ASP.NET 2.0 instead of 1.1 as that contains loads of great new features.
Web Matrix AFAIK won't be developed any more, so won't give you the
features of 2.0.

It's worth a look to get you going, but try and do as much by hand as
you can.

Is http://www.w3schools.com the best place for me to get up to speed on
ASP.NET? What's a good book?

I tried a few sources for learning, but didn't find any on-line ones
that were up to it. The SDK is too big and complex for a beginner IMO,
and something like this you just need a book you can read, reread and
then try out.

I am working my way through ASP.NET Unleashed by Stephen Walther (from a
recommendation in this ng) and it's very good IMO. It's a whacking big
book, but it's clear and well-explained. The code is all in VB.NET,
although C# versions come on the CD.

I would steer well clear of the quick start examples as I found them
impossible to understand. Maybe when I get a lot better at this I'll be
able to work through them, but at the start you have to begin with
simple pages and work upwards, you just can't jump in with something as
complex as those samples. ASP.NET isn't easy ;-)

The other suggestion is to formulate your problems clearly and post
here. I have found this ng to be very helpful indeed. They're actually
very nice to us newbies, we don't get eaten for breakfast for asking
dumb questions!!

 

[Alan Silver]

I would steer well clear of the quick start examples as I found them

impossible to understand. Maybe when I get a lot better at this I'll be
able to work through them, but at the start you have to begin with
simple pages and work upwards, you just can't jump in with something as
complex as those samples. ASP.NET isn't easy ;-)

This of course is complete rubbish!! I was getting confused when I typed
this.

The quick start tutorials (http://www.asp.net/Tutorials/quickstart.aspx)
are excellent, although suffer from being on-line, which I find harder
to read and digest. The big advantage of a book is that you can read it
more comfortably (personal opinion).

What I meant to say was that the Starter Kits that you get with the SDK
are very complex and will probably not help much for quite a while.

Sorry for the confusion ;-)