ASP/VBScript

ASP (Active Server Pages) are HTML web documents containing script that runs on the server. Because ASP is a Microsoft technology, the script contained in an ASP document is normally written in JScript, VBScript, or a combination of the two.

VBScript is a scripting language with a Visual Basic style syntax. It was initially invented by Microsoft in order to generate dynamic HTML on the client, i.e. when a page is loaded into Internet Explorer. Despite the dominance of Internet Explorer, JavaScript/JScript is still the best language to use for client-side scripting, because not only is it supported by IE, but other popular browsers as well. As a result, most developers will only use VBScript to run on the server, which is why we've bracketed ASP and VBScript together in this category.

ASP pages are usually hosted on a Windows platform running Microsoft's IIS HTTP server. However, products such as Sun's Chili!Soft enable ASP pages to be hosted by other operating systems and HTTP servers.

Related links on the internet

MSDN Online

Microsoft's repository of development knowledge. A vast library coupled with a large downloads section featuring many free products.

Internet Related Technologies

Articles, tutorials and FAQ about several web development topics including ASP, CGI, CSS, design, graphics, HTML, JavaScript, Apache, VBScript and XML.

ASP Alliance

Articles about ASP, SQL, XML and more. Contains useful introductory articles on topics such as web services and stored procedures.