In This Issue...
Introduction: The summer is coming
Hello Subscribers,
This is already the second issue of the ASPit Digest. I'm still very active with this newsletter, and trying to get as much as (unique) content possible. I'm also looking at the possibility of creating a CMS for the newsletter (so it's easier to create it).
The past few days the summer has been knocking on our doors, and I'm already feeling a little bit too hot. But it's nothing that'll stop me from sending out the Digest. As we go into the summer months, the computer usage will go down, and most of us will be outside a lot more. But fear not, the ASPit Digest will continue!
The next issue will be sent slightly earlier due to a trip I will be making from May the 7th till the 15th. I will most likely send out the new issue a few days before.
But for now, enjoy reading this issue of the ASPit Digest. It contains quite a bit of content again; including the latest on ASP and a review of ASP PageMinder
Happy Reading!
Dennis Pallett
dennis@aspit.net
Editor's Perspective: The future of ASP
ASP has been around for many years now, and it's moving into new areas. Several years ago, ASP was a relative unknown thing to everyone, but these days every developer knows what ASP can be used for. This is mainly due to the newest version of ASP; ASP.NET.
As it is, classic ASP (ASP 3.0) is slowly dying and more and more developers are switching to ASP.NET. It's rather logical as well, because ASP.NET is the future of ASP, and it's feature-set is huge, when compared to classic ASP.
Personally, I haven't had the time or motivation yet to learn ASP.NET. Of course I've dabbled with it a few times, and I already know it's much more powerful (e.g. web forms). But I don't really know it yet. I do know, however, that ASP.NET will very soon overtake ASP (if not already).
ASP.NET is the way to go. If someone know asked me whether they should learn ASP or ASP.NET now, I'd immediately say ASP.NET, without even having to think about it. It will stay with us for the next following years (although it will be updated several times), and every major company will start using it. Each ASP project will be done using ASP.NET. In fact, being able to use .NET technologies is starting to become a must these days, as Microsoft continues to 'push' .NET (and it's working).
Currently, classic ASP is still very actively used in the developer community. But as time goes on, it is inevitable that ASP.NET will overtake classic ASP. It will slowly fade away, until it's just a long-forgotten memory. Better learn ASP.NET soon, or else you'll be limiting yourself!
If you need any help in learning ASP.NET, check out the ASP.NET books on ASPit or the ASP.NET articles.
What's New on ASP & ASP.NET
As usual, a lot of excellent new information has been posted in the 'ASP World'. Below are the highlights of the past few weeks.
MSDN has, like always, posted several new articles on ASP.NET. Beginning with a new article by Scott Mitchell. Part 6 of An Extensive Examination of Data Structures: Efficiently Representing Sets looks at data structures for implementing general and disjoint sets. The article, 20 printed pages long, is very worthy of reading if you are interested in data structures and sets.
Another article, by Callum Shillan, looks at the session management of ASP.NET. Deferred ASP.NET Session State Management describes a mechanism to defer instantiating items held in ASP.NET session state until the point of use. If you'd like to know more about that, read through this lengthy article - 23 printed pages - now!
The local Belgium MSDN has added a new article as well, on inserting multiple records at once with the ASP.NET DataGrid control. This article shows you how inserting multiple records can be achieved using a web form, a DataGrid control, a data access layer and stored procedures.
ASPFree has also been pretty busy lately. They've added several new articles, all of course about ASP.NET. One article, written by Dwight Peltzer, talks about ASP.NET and web services. This connects excellently with the AWS Series on ASPit.
Another article, written by Harish Kamath, is all about input validation in ASP.NET. Input validation is one of the most important things of every programming language, as it's the most common security problem. The article talks about regular expressions, number validation and more!
4GuysFromRolla have also added an excellent article (as always). Creating a Content Rater looks at creating a content rater, similiar to the content rater on MSDN, using ASP.NET. If you'd like a content rater on your ASP.NET website as well, have a look at this article.
Screenshot of the MSDN Content Rater
Something that might be worth mentioning as well is a new blog entry by Scott Mitchell, on his blog; Scott on Writing. In the blog entry he discusses whether it's wise to use Code-Behinds in your ASP.NET applications. It's an interesting entry, all about the advantages and disadvantages of Code-Behinds.
Geekpedia has a very useful guide on how to setup your IIS server, so it can run ASP.NET applications as well. This guide will take you through the installation process of IIS, and then show you how to configure it for ASP.NET
And finally, DeveloperFusion has a short 7-step tutorial on how to deploy your ASP.NET applications. If you ever need to distribute ASP.NET apps, it may be useful to read through this article first!
Review: ASP PageMinder
ASP PageMinder is a powerful component, by ASPaxis, that is designed to give classic ASP websites the capabilities of the ASP.NET DataGrid and DataList control. Using this component, you can very easily and quickly create displays of records. I have been using this component for the past few days, and I must say; I'm very pleased with it.
Before even installing a new component or such, I tend to check out any demos and documentation. The first thing I looked at were the demos on the website of ASPaxis. There are 3 demos, and each one demonstrates a different feature of ASP PageMinder. This already gave me a good first impression. I like it when a product has a clear demo.
After playing with the demos for a while, I decided to download it, and check it out myself. It might be worth mentioning that you can download the free edition, before you purchase the full version. This allows you to test it, and see if it suits your needs. Another positive point in my book (I prefer to try out things myself first).
When the download had finished, the first thing I wanted to check is the documentation, if there is any. Often, documentation is a forgotten thing, as developers tend to hate writing documentation. In fact, I'm guilty of it myself; aspAccessEditor has no documentation at all.
This is different with ASP PageMinder. I found a 30 page PDF file, crammed with information, tips and useful help. I doubt the documentation could be any better. Definitely another positive point. What's even more astonishing is the fact that the documentation also applies to the free edition. There's even specific information about the free edition in there. Excellent!
After browsing through the documentation for a while, I installed the component on my computer by following the instructions in the documentation. It took me less than one minute to install it.
One thing that may form a problem for most people is the fact that the component is a DLL, and so cannot be used on most shared web-hosts. Currently, ASPaxis is negotiating deals with a few big ASP web-hosts, but it will still be a problem for most people. However, this is nothing specific to ASP PageMinder, but generally a problem for any component. Before purchasing this component, it is wise to ask your web-host whether they allow installation of custom components (DLLs).
I quickly created a few scripts to test the capabilities of ASP PageMinder, and it worked perfectly in every script. Needless to say, I was very pleased with that, because often components fail or don't work properly (I can't count the hours I've spent trying to get a component to work).
Generally, ASP PageMinder seemed pretty fast as well. I didn't perform a timing test, but each script loaded pretty quickly, even when I was doing some heavy queries (e.g. selecting all records from a table with over 50,000 records).
The final thing worth mentioning is their support. One important aspect of a commercial product is, of course, the support behind it. ASPaxis seems to have this covered very well, and their support form is available for technical issues and questions.
In conclusion, ASP PageMinder is an excellent component, and I wish I had known about this before. It has extensive documentation, and very clear code examples. The component itself works without problems, and seems pretty fast as well (probably faster than regular ASP code). If you are looking for a DataGrid control for classic ASP, then ASP PageMinder should be top on your list.
Rating: 9.5/10
Price: Free/$175.00
Website: http://www.aspaxis.com
Script of the Week: aspinfo()
aspinfo() is the equivalent of the popular PHP function, phpinfo().
The script shows you all kinds of information about your server, the ASP engine, and the local variables. If you ever need to debug some sort of server problem or an ASP bug, it is definitely worth looking into aspinfo() for all kinds of statistical information.
It is due to be upgraded soon, with ever more features, information and functions. Of course, aspinfo() will remain a very small script, so it's easy to upload to your server.
If you wish to download a copy of aspinfo() yourself, click here to get the code now! If you'd like to contribute anything or have a feature suggestion, feel free to e-mail me.
What's New on ASPit
As always, I'm busy creating new content for ASPit. Though lately there has been a lack of noticeable updates, rest assured that I have been working hard to get new content. So, what's in the planning for the coming summer months?
Like I said in the last issue, I'm planning to launch hosted-services, such as formmail, mailing lists, and database tools (a hosted version of aspAccessEditor!). The past 2 weeks I have begun these projects, and I'm expecting to launch them very soon!
I'd like to add a lot more content to ASPit as well. I'm mainly looking for articles, tutorials and FAQs, but codesnippets are very appreciated as well. If you'd like to write an ASP piece for ASPit, don't hesitate to e-mail me! I don't have any real requirements, as long as your spelling and grammar is up to par, and I'm looking for at least 500+ words (but believe me, you're upto 1000 words in no time!). Of course, it's logical it should be written by yourself, and not copied from another website.
What will you get in return? Besides your name, biography and a link back to your site on ASPit, there are other perks for writers. But I'll keep those as a surprise. The only way to find out is to write an article!
Finally, I'm looking to sell advertising space on ASPit as well. Rest assured that there will NEVER be any flashing/annoying ads, like the "You've Won!" ads. I will be forming an advertising policy in the next coming weeks, but all ads are of course subject to approval by me, and I will only accept ads that are related to ASP and ASP.NET. If you own a company/website, and want to advertise on ASPit, feel free to e-mail me and we'll discuss details.
Closing Words
That wraps up the second issue of the ASPit Digest. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends or colleagues. If they like it, don't hesistate to give them the subscribe link (the ASPit homepage). If you've got any comments or questions, feel free to reply to this e-mail (it'll be directed to me). I will try to personally reply as fast as possible.
The next issue will be sent in about 2 weeks (slightly earlier), around Thursday May the 6th. Expect it to be filled with articles, tips and more on ASP & ASP.NET.
