Beginning Active Server Pages

Active Server Pages enables a web developer to replace static HTML pages with 'live data'. This information might be from a database, or simply by using cookie information. But why does this have any relevance to a VB website? The reason is Active Server Pages use Visual Basic as its main language (it also supports Javascript), and therefore makes it easy for a VB developer to become an ASP developer too. However, please note that this tutorial assumes some knowledge of HTML.

First, lets take a look behind the idea of Active Server Pages. Normally, when someone visits a site, his browser sends a request for a certain file, such as index.htm. The server will then return this file to the client PC, and it will be displayed in the browser:

Active Server Pages, meanwhile, allow Visual Basic script to be processed on the server before sending the file back to the client.

This has a number of benefits

• Unlike client-side code, such as the javascript that makes ad windows popup, the browser does not need to understand VB - it doesn't even get to see it.
• The VB code can act on information passed to the page, such as from an internet form or a querystring (this is data passed in the URL after the ? ... take a look at this pages URL!). It can then use this information to display data, or retrieve specific information from a database
• Only the smallest amount of data is sent to the client - only the HTML that the page outputs is sent, not the VB code. This also means that the authors VB programming work is protected from visitors!