ASP.NET - can someone explain it to a unix guy?

[notfred]

Coming from a background of using CGI (and mod_perl and a little bit of PHP) with Apache on unix machines, can anyone give me a quick intro to ASP.NET?

What OS do I need for my server? Anything that runs IIS?
What about the .NET framework?
Do I need Visual Studio for development?
I can write ASP.NET in C#, VB, or JScript, right? If I use C#, can I use any of C#s libraries from an ASP.NET page, or is it's functianlity limited in any way?

Any other useful info would be appreciated.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: notfred
Coming from a background of using CGI (and mod_perl and a little bit of PHP) with Apache on unix machines, can anyone give me a quick intro to ASP.NET?
IIRC

What OS do I need for my server? Anything that runs IIS? Windows
What about the .NET framework? Windows
Do I need Visual Studio for development? No
I can write ASP.NET in C#, VB, or JScript, right? If I use C#, can I use any of C#s libraries from an ASP.NET page, or is it's functianlity limited in any way?

Any other useful info would be appreciated.

 

[notfred]

Well, Windows was implied Which versions? Only the server versions?

 

[MikeMike]

anything that you can run .net framework on i believe. which would be 2k, xp, server.

MIKE

 

[WannaFly]

As stated, you can run it on anything that has IIS and the .net framework installed. I develop on a XP pro machine at work. Visual studio is recommended for development, as its an incredible tool for .net development - but it is possible to develop without it - do i know how? no. Tpyically ASP.Net can be written in either C# or VB.NET, and either of those will pretty much automatically integrate JScript for client side functions. C# and VB.NET share the same base classes but there are small differences between the two. Microsoft makes "Web Matrix" - a WYSIWYG editor for asp.net that is free and it ok to get started in .net development. Web Matrix http://www.asp.net is an incredible resource, with TONS of forum topics. You can also download "starter kits" that is the source code for completely working applications: Start Kits

a few other links:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/
http://dotnet247.com/247reference/default.aspx
http://4guysfromrolla.com/

When starting, it might be a little difficult to differentiate asp.net develop from webforms, but most of the time they are compatible or need slight modification.

 

[daniel1113]

Coming from a CGI and PHP background, ASP.NET shouldn't be too difficult to pick-up. There are distinct differences in the way a server handles ASP.NET scripts versus CGI/PHP (and this is what makes ASP.NET so powerful). As WannaFly mentioned, Visual Studio is highly recommended, but not required. You can write scripts using Notepad if you wish, so long as they are compiled correctly before distribution.

Do some searches on Google and you will find MANY intorductions to ASP.NET.

 

[drag]

ASP.NET Linux...

Linux + XSP + Mono = ASP.NET
Linux + Apache + mod_mono + Mono = ASP.NET
mwhahahaha.

 

[ttown]

Originally posted by: drag
ASP.NET Linux...

Linux + XSP + Mono = ASP.NET
Linux + Apache + mod_mono + Mono = ASP.NET
mwhahahaha.

Hey.... that looks pretty interesting. Now, does that mean I can have my RH Linux/mysql webhost host asp.net apps?
I ask because I'm in a quagmire... my host is a low-cost linux/mysql host (hostpc.com), yet I'm interested in asp.net.

If anyone can answer "yes" and give an outline on what I'd need to do, that would be great. hostpc uses DirectAdmin as a front-end mgmt tool. I haven't done any custom coding with the webhost, but I suspect i'd need to use DirectAdmin to "install" things.
Has anyone used the above xsp/mod_mono/Mono in a situation like mine?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: ttown

Originally posted by: drag
ASP.NET Linux...

Linux + XSP + Mono = ASP.NET
Linux + Apache + mod_mono + Mono = ASP.NET
mwhahahaha.

Hey.... that looks pretty interesting. Now, does that mean I can have my RH Linux/mysql webhost host asp.net apps?
I ask because I'm in a quagmire... my host is a low-cost linux/mysql host (hostpc.com), yet I'm interested in asp.net.

If anyone can answer "yes" and give an outline on what I'd need to do, that would be great. hostpc uses DirectAdmin as a front-end mgmt tool. I haven't done any custom coding with the webhost, but I suspect i'd need to use DirectAdmin to "install" things.
Has anyone used the above xsp/mod_mono/Mono in a situation like mine?

Nope. Don't have a clue.
Although since MS made a open standard of .NET and all that C# stuff Mono is able to do a pretty good job of making a Linux implimentation.

Seems like the smartest thing to do would to get a cheap workstation or whatever and simply install Linux on it and try it out in that enviroment and see how things work out. That way you can have your own little enviroment to play around with asp.net in Linux and see how well it works out for you.

I suggest installing Debian and upgrading it to "unstable" also known as "sid". Debian has a steep learning curve when it comes to newbies and such, but it is very usefull for people knowledgable with LInux. Also Debian Unstable has the added advantage of a effective package manager that makes installing software a breeze (apt-get) and has a completely up to date version of mono, XSP (mono's C#-based standalone server) and other packages from it's standard sources.

here is the Debian mono stuff.

Also Suse 9.1 and Fedora Core 2 would be usefull test beds if your don't want to run Debian since RPM packages for those distros are aviable from the go-monodownload page.

It would be pretty easy to simply execute XSP and check out it's demo stuff.
Pretty much all you do once everything is installed is open up a terminal change to the directory that contains the sample pages and execute "mono /usr/bin/xsp.exe" and then open up a browser and connect to 127.0.0.1:8080 (I think thats the default port if you don't specificy it for XSP).

At least that is what makes sense for me. Maybe mention it to your web hoster and see if they are familar with it. Or something like that.

Also keep in mind that I have very little experiance with all of this stuff, (VERY LITTLE) if you want better advice and information check out the various resources made aviable to you from go-mono.com including mailing lists, IRC chat, and documentation.

Personally I find this stuff fascinating, I just wish I had more time to play around with this stuff.

 

[torpid]

If you want to learn the basics of asp.net then php and cgi aren't going to be TOO much different. If you want to learn how to code proper applications in asp.net, then you are in for a bit of a system shock, because going from scripting languages or cgi based processing to a proper OO architecture is a bit of a learning curve.

 

[royaldank]

Originally posted by: torpid
If you want to learn the basics of asp.net then php and cgi aren't going to be TOO much different. If you want to learn how to code proper applications in asp.net, then you are in for a bit of a system shock, because going from scripting languages or cgi based processing to a proper OO architecture is a bit of a learning curve.

I'll second this. I had plenty of C in college, and have been doing mainly ASP and perl the last few years. Moving over to .net and really understanding it was a pain in the ass and still not something I'm familiar with.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: torpid
If you want to learn the basics of asp.net then php and cgi aren't going to be TOO much different. If you want to learn how to code proper applications in asp.net, then you are in for a bit of a system shock, because going from scripting languages or cgi based processing to a proper OO architecture is a bit of a learning curve.

I'm perfectly comfortable with java nd OO programming, I just haven't used it in a web application setting.

 

[ttown]

Originally posted by: drag
ASP.NET Linux...

Linux + XSP + Mono = ASP.NET
Linux + Apache + mod_mono + Mono = ASP.NET
mwhahahaha.

thanks for the info, drag.... I've got machines to spare -- both win2k server and suse 9.1 -- and just got a asp.net step-by-step book (from AT hot-deals). I'll try things out the normal way with IIS and pure windows stuff till i know what i'm doing, get something working, then try to make it happen on linux.
thanks again

 

[DT4K]

Just to reiterate, javascript is not asp.net, but both can co-exist just fine. I've found that using code-behind is the cleanest way to do it. You basically separate your logic from your presentation. You have a separate .vb or .cs file that contains your source code and a .aspx file that has your html in it. You can write your VB.Net or C# code and that will be executed on the server. Then if you want to do client side stuff, you can add javascript to your .aspx file just like you would with classic asp scripting.