Introduction to ASP.NET

   ASP.NET is more than the next version of Active Server Pages (ASP); it provides a unified Web development model that includes the services necessary for developers to build enterprise-class Web applications. 

     While ASP.NET is largely syntax compatible with ASP, it also provides a new programming model and infrastructure for more scalable and stable applications that help provide greater protection.

    You can feel free to augment your existing ASP applications by incrementally adding ASP.NET functionality to them.

     ASP.NET is a compiled, .NET-based environment; you can author applications in any .NET compatible language, including Visual Basic .NET, C#, and JScript .NET. Additionally, the entire .NET Framework is available to any ASP.NET application. 

     Developers can easily access the benefits of these technologies, which include the managed common language runtime environment, type safety, inheritance, and so on.

ASP.NET includes:

• A page and controls framework
  
• The ASP.NET compiler
  
• Security infrastructure
  
• State-management facilities
  
• Application configuration
  
• Health monitoring and performance features
  
• Debugging support
  
• An XML Web services framework
  
• Extensible hosting environment and application life cycle management
  
• An extensible designer environment
  
  

  Page and Controls Framework

  The ASP.NET page and controls framework is a programming framework that runs on a Web server to dynamically produce and render ASP.NET Web pages. ASP.NET Web pages can be requested from any browser or client device, and ASP.NET renders markup (such as HTML) to the requesting browser. As a rule, you can use the same page for multiple browsers, because ASP.NET renders the appropriate markup for the browser making the request. However, you can design your ASP.NET Web page to target a specific browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and take advantage of the features of that browser. 
   

  ASP.NET Compiler

  All ASP.NET code is compiled, which enables strong typing, performance optimizations, and early binding, among other benefits. Once the code has been compiled, the common language runtime further compiles ASP.NET code to native code, providing improved performance.