Developing Web Applications

Reuse, Buy, or Build

When it comes time to procure components for your application, reuse the objects you already have if possible. If none of your prebuilt objects will do, consider buying third-party components from a reputable vendor.

If you can’t locate a prebuilt component, you will have to build one yourself. Server-side components can be built using any development tool that supports the creation of COM Automation servers, such as Visual Basic, Microsoft® Visual J++®, or Microsoft® Visual C++®. As with scripts, choose the component language that suits your needs. Microsoft® Visual Basic® 6.0 creates “Apartment” threaded components that can be used on a page-by-page basis. If computational speed and multiuser re-entrancy are important to your application, you should use Visual C or Visual C++ with Active Template Library (ATL) 2.0 to develop your component. Visual C and Visual C++ can create “Both” threaded components that are suitable for use in the application and session scope. (For more information about threading considerations, see Selecting Object Scope.)

For more information about creating a server-side component, see the “ASP Tutorial” topics in the “Active Server Pages Guide” section of the IIS 5.0 online product documentation.