Developing Web Applications
Developing Web Applications |
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The ASP scripting environment greatly simplifies server-side programming so that you can easily create dynamic content and powerful Web-based applications.
Scripts in ASP pages can perform the same sorts of tasks as CGI and ISAPI applications, but are much easier to write and modify. ASP creates a higher level of interactivity by managing application and session state on the server, thereby reducing the amount of information that needs to be transmitted back and forth between the server and the client. ASP makes it easy to work with information entered into HTML forms or in the URL as parameters. You can also control advanced HTTP features from client-side cookies and client security certificates. See the IIS 5.0 online product documentation for more information about advanced features.
At the heart of ASP is an ISAPI extension—Asp.dll— that compiles and caches .asp files in memory at run time using a script interpreter. The IIS 5.0 script map associates the .asp extension to Asp.dll. Because ASP must interpret and compile scripts before executing them, complex scripts can be about four times slower than plain HTML, and two to three times slower than ISAPI, when they are first requested. Afterward, the compiled version of the page is cached in server memory, making subsequent requests significantly faster and amortizing the initial cost of compilation over potentially thousands of page requests.
ASP is designed for usability and ease of development, giving you the opportunity to dramatically decrease time spent in development. However, it will never outperform static content, or custom-written, task-focused C++ ISAPI extensions. Only carefully designed ASP applications, combined with server-side components, can approach the speed and performance of ISAPI applications. For information about designing ASP pages, see the “Building ASP Pages” topic in the IIS 5.0 online product documentation.
See the following: