Benefits of ASP

ASP was designed as a faster and easier alternative to CGI scripting using Perl or C. It provides an easy-to-learn scripting interface (including native support for VBScript and JScript), along with a number of predefined objects that simplify many development tasks, such as maintaining user state and defining global variables within an application. ADO components can be used to perform additional functions, including accessing ODBC-compliant databases, and outputting data to text files. Java components and XML can be used to extend ASP scripts.

ASP runs as a service of the Web server, and is optimized for multiple threads and multiple users. This means that ASP is fast and easy to implement.

ASP enables you to separate the design of your Web page from the details of programming access to databases and applications, allowing programmers and Web designers to focus exclusively on what they do best.

Server-side ASP scripts can be used to store HTML form information in a database, personalize Web sites according to visitor preferences, or use different HTML features based on the browser. Because scripts can run on the server rather than on the client, the Web server can do much of the work involved in generating the HTML pages sent to browsers. Server-side scripts cannot be readily copied because only the result of the script is returned to the browser; users cannot view the script commands that created the page they are viewing.

For the HTML author, ASP is an easy way to begin creating Web applications. To process user input on the Web server with CGI applications, a programming language such as Perl or C must be learned. With ASP, however, you can collect HTML form information and pass it to a database by using simple server-side scripts written in VBScript of JScript that are embedded directly in your HTML documents.

ASP is language-neutral, so if you’re skilled at a scripting language such as VBScript or JScript, you already know how to use ASP.

If you develop Web applications by using a programming language such as Java, Visual Basic, or C++, you will appreciate the flexibility of ASP. In addition to using scripts to create an engaging HTML interface for your application, you can also use Java components to encapsulate your application's business logic into reusable modules that can be called from a script, from another component, or from another program.