ASP.NET 3.5 - Anatomy ( for beginners)

ASP.Net 3.5
ASP.NET 3.5 is the next milestone in the evolution of Microsoft's ASP.NEt Platform. This time, this verison features AJAX, integration with the windows communication Foundation ( WCF ) service platform, Language INtegrated Query ( LINQ ) support and a few new server controls to fill existing functional gaps...

For Beginners:
What is ASP.NET?
Before asp.net, there were three main technologies and platforms for web development.

1. ASP
2. JSP
3. LAMP ( open source web platform : Linux plus Apache plus MySQL plus either Perl, Python or PHP as the programming language)

Although each has a language-specific or platform specific features, all these were web development platforms designed to create interactive web pages rather than the lifeless simple HTML pages.

Like other web development environment ASP.NET also works on the top of HTTP protocol. But what differentiate it from other web development technologies is its abstract programming models.... ( the web forms model )

In addition the whole ASP.NET platform comes as part of Microsoft .NET Framework.
In short ASP.NET applications are compiled pieces of code, which can be written in first class languages ( like C#.NET, VB.NET, Jscript.NET, J# ) and which can access the entire classes in the .NET framework.


what is latest to come in future... ????

• I have seen some whitepapers says ASP.NET will become a DLR ( dynamic Language runtime environment) when it supports programming languages like Python and Ruby. So ASP.NET is having a bright future... :)

Well as a programmer you need to know, more about the File extensions of ASP.NET applications.

• .aspx => Files that represent ASP.NET Pages
• .asmx => Files that implement .NET web services
• .ascx => ASP.NET user control files.
• .axd => file extension used for application level tracing ( trace.axd) or script level injection ( webresource.axd)
• .ashx => HTTP handlers ( managed modules ) that interact with low level request and response services of IIS
• .asax => ASP.NET application file such as Global.asax. This file cannot be requested directly.

In addition to this, .cs , .csproj, .vb, .vbproj, .config and .resx ( the typical Microsoft Visual Studio files) are also handled by ASP.NET.


Next time we will see how this files are requested and who handles those requests....

Post your comments and suggestions too... ;)