Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition

Chapter 1. Hello ASP.NET 2.0!

The evolution of ASP.NET continues! The progression from Active Server Pages 3.0 to ASP.NET 1.0 was revolutionary, to say the least; and we are here to tell you that the evolution from ASP.NET 1.0/1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0 is just as exciting and dramatic.

The introduction of ASP.NET 1.0/1.1 changed the Web programming model; but ASP.NET 2.0 is just as revolutionary in the way it increases productivity. The primary goal of ASP.NET 2.0 is to enable you to build powerful, secure, and dynamic applications using the least possible amount of code. Although this book covers the new features provided by ASP.NET 2.0, it also covers most of what the ASP.NET technology offers.

A Little Bit of History

Before organizations were even thinking about developing applications for the Internet, much of the application development focused on thick desktop applications. These thick-client applications were used for everything from home computing and gaming to office productivity and more. No end was in sight for the popularity of this application model.

During that time, Microsoft developers developed its thick-client applications using mainly Visual Basic (VB).

Visual Basic was not only a programming language; it was tied to an IDE that allowed for easy thick-client application development. In the Visual Basic model, developers could drop controls onto a form, set properties for these controls, and provide code behind them to manipulate the events of the control. For example, when ...