What's needed to write ASP.NET 2

[gs99]

I have XP Home Edition and Visual Basic.Net 2003.

What do I need to write ASP.Net applications?

In book "VB.Net Step by Step" (MS), p550 these are mentioned:

1. Windows XP Professional, that has Internet Information Services (IIS)
I'll need to buy this.

2. MS FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions
Where do I get these?

3. .NET Framework libraries
Do I need more than what came with VB.Net 2003?

Will I need to re-install vb.net 2003 after installing Xp Pro?

Another book said I need to install SQL Server 2000.

I've also seen that ASP.NET is a free download. How does this relate to vb.net?

One more question: Can the compiled asp.net programs run on all servers?

Thanks,
George

 

[Isadore]

George - I'm sure a few others will drop by and give you additional tips here. From my experience the following works fine.

Installation of XP Pro, and then IIS, followed by the .NET framework. If your database is going to be stored in SQL Server 2000, then you'll need of course to set that up (independent, you could just as well hit Access tables - OLEDb v. SQL).

Keep in mind the differences of course with ASP.NET and VB.NET (Window forms v. Web Forms). The resulting web forms are rendered in html so the browser type in general is not a problem although differences with Netscape and IE can be problematic at times.

The Frontpage server extentions can be modified or adjusted with XP Pro (they are there) althought the last time I installed IIS, then dot NET, the extensions were working fine (no problems). I'm sure a few others will drop by and give you a few more tips - I am only at a technical level with dot NET but have been working with it for about a year now.

 

[BoulderBum]

"Do I need more than what came with VB.Net 2003?"

No.

"Will I need to re-install vb.net 2003 after installing Xp Pro?"

No, but you will need to run regiis -i in the command line to register .aspx with IIS.

"Another book said I need to install SQL Server 2000."

.NET can work with any database that can be accessed via an ODBC bridge. .NET has special classes for SQL Server (and now Oracle), but you can work with most any database system you want, including MySql.

The book probably meant that its examples used SQL Server as the database.

"I've also seen that ASP.NET is a free download. How does this relate to vb.net?"

The .NET framework consists of an extensive class library which supports a growing number of languages which can all be compiled into the same intermediate language (MSIL). VB.NET is one of the languages that can currently be compiled into MSIL, just like C#, JavaScript.NET, etc. To the framework, all of the compiled MSIL looks the same (the compiled "bytecode" transcends the programming languages).

ASP.NET is simply the web portion of the framework (not a language in itself). You can code an ASP.NET page with VB.NET, C#, or whatever other supported language you prefer.

You may be able to download a .NET SDK or something, but you'll hate life if all you use is Notepad. Web Matrix is a so-so free IDE worth checking out, though.

"One more question: Can the compiled asp.net programs run on all servers?"

No. Microsoft built ASP.NET to run on mainly Microsoft servers. .NET is fast, and extremely powerful, but vendor lock is a downside.

That said, I think there is a .NET Virtual Machine for Mac and Unix, and the Linux open sourcers are working on Linux version (called the "Mono" project), but I'm not sure if they're done yet.

As far as what browsers can access an ASP.NET webpage, it doesn't really matter, as Isadore said. The server converts everything to standard HTML and JavaScript, so any browser that supports these technologies will (theoretically) work. This includes Netscape, Mozilla, and more.

 

[Isadore]

Nice summary BB. There have been so many here at Tek-Tips trying to get a kick start -- this is nice summation of the start-up techniques.

 

[gs99]

Thanks for your help.

Could you clarify the last question. I've been doing the HTML for a client; I just upload the Html and graphic files.
If I want to upgrade their pages to ASP.Net, will I have to know what kind of server their site is hosted on?

I understand the IIS in XP Pro provides a (friendly) "server" for development. Should I expect problems when the asp.net files are uploaded to another type of server?

Thanks,
George