ASP.NET features

ASP.NET features

Because they are compiled, applications in ASP.NET run faster than PHP ones.

ASP.NET is written using real object oriented programming languages (C++, VB.NET, C#), while offering multi-language support. ASP.NET applications can be written in any language from C++, C#, Visual Basic, Jscript, Python, Java, Perl, COBOL, Eiffel and Delphi. This results in easy code mixing, objects being instantiated in one language from classes written in others. More languages increases the possibility of finding programmers for ASP.NET projects, as well as finding pre-written classes.

Microsoft has released a series of free development environments for .NET and ASP.NET, called Visual Studio Express Editions. The Web Edition has a built-in Web server, FTP integration and a database administration interface. Microsoft has also released SQL Server Express, a free development edition of the MS SQL server.

Visual Studio .NET can automatically create reports and diagrams for databases. It can debug the code line by line, while simultaneously watching what happens in the application. It can assign a new value to a variable during debugging, in order to test different possibilities.

ASP.NET offers access to the .NET framework class library. The .NET framework offers over 4500 classes that include rich functionality like XML, data access, file upload, regular expression, image generation, SMTP mail etc. other functionality offered by the .NET framework can count the following:

ASP.NET web forms. These available forms support a large variety of server controls. A programmer can also write his own user or server controls.
Out-of-Process session state. Session variables are no longer lost if a website is restarted or even if the server is restarted, offering improved Web site reliability.
Business objects can be created through .NET (compiled DLLs) for Web applications.
XML web services. Inter-operable web services can be created to communicate and share data over the web, without minding the operating system or the programming language.
ADO.NET support provides consistent access to data sources like the MS SQL server, or data sources exposed via OLE DB and XML.
ASP.NET offers alternatives to ASPMail or ASPUpload, while also enabling new functionality like image generation, encryption and others, functions that in the past required third-party components.
With ASP.NET Mobile Internet Toolkit a programmer can target cell phones, PDAs and other mobile devices with relative ease. Over 80 mobile devices are supported with just one code base. So, based on the requesting device, ASP.NET automatically generates the suitable WAP / WML, HTML or iMode code.
Code written in any edition of Visual Studio (including the free Web Edition), Dreamweaver MX and others, works fine and is supported on any ASP.NET-enabled servers.