What are Active Server Pages: Part 2

Active Server Pages

Active Server Pages (ASP) are a way of creating pages on the fly. With a little bit of programming skill and a working knowledge of ASP (both of which I intend to provide you with) you will soon find that you are able to create web pages that change depending on the actions of the person viewing your site.

I realise that I have mentioned the programming word. Don't Panic. ASP is not real programming (but don't let on that I told you that, or all the contractors earning loads of dosh will be after me). ASP is a SCRIPTING language. You write a script that sits in the same file as all your HTML. Rather than just sending the HTML page back to the browser, the Web Server (IIS) goes through the script line by line and does anything that you have told it to (such as getting information from a database) before it creates the HTML page for delivery. This is why the page is dynamic; you can have the ASP script show different information under different conditions. So don't worry that you are going to have to get involved with complicated compile, linking and executable problems, because you aren't. I promise to be gentle.

One of the first things that we will do as a practical exercise is have a simple form on a web page which asks for the persons name. The next page will welcome that person to the site, using the name that they supplied. Think for a minute how you would do this just using HTML pages. OK, no prizes, but you couldn't do it. This is the power of ASP that I will show you.

Later on we will create a mini-ASP site where you will be accessing information stored in a database and updating that information over the web. In this way you should come to an understanding of ASP and gain some practical skills to help you develop your own ASP site.

Enjoy.