ASP Hosting - Why Do People Still Use Classic ASP?

Did you notice that many people are still usingASP? This is somewhat strange due to the popularity of.NET. Why arethey still using the classic instead of the new and powerful ASP.NET?First of all,.NET has XML-based components, better language support anduser authentication, and a huge set of new controls. It can alsoincrease performance by running code that is already compiled.However,.NET code is not backward compatible with ASP code, makingtransitions somewhat time consuming.

Classic, unlike ASP.NET, isrunning under the IIS process space, otherwise knows as inetinfo.exe.It is prone to crashes and can also force the IIS to be restarted..NEThas the entry point in the IIS, the process itself is separate from it.Classic does not know how to operate on non-Microsoft platforms (forexample on the Apache server) whereas.NET is fully capable of doing so.Classic only supports JavaScript and VBScript as scripting languageswhile ASP.NET can work with all.NET languages. Classic ASP has limitedsupport for debugging, making it a tough job while its competitor notonly improves the performance of debugging, but also adds debuggingtools for developers.

In ASP, if you have a script block that ismarked as "runat=server" and this block contains a function, you areallowed to include executable code outside the scope of the function.ASP.NET does not allow this and instead uses the code-behind technique.There are a lot of pros and cons to this technique. Another strong sideof classic ASP is the threading model. The threading model is SingleThreaded Apartment (STA) and the older one's worker thread is containedin its own STA. This ensures compatibility and also increasesperformance. ASP.NET uses the MTA (Multiple Threaded Apartment) whichforces developers to take extra precautions.

So why do peoplestill use ASP instead of the more powerful.NET? Well, one cause wouldbe the knowledge. You need a lot more basic knowledge to work in.NETthan you need in classic ASP. Even low level things seem hard to doin.NET. There are a lot of things you should learn and you should havea lot of free time if you truly want to master.NET. Many peoplerecommend classic to average users because they don't need any of thenew features and the performance is almost the same. There are also alot of applications, tips and tricks, and tutorials available forclassic ASP. Only large corporations truly have to work with ASP.NET togain scalability in their technology.

Lisa served as product manager on one of the leading ASP web hosting company, specializing in offering Classic ASP hosting support and services.