ASP is short for Active Server Pages, and obviously, it is a server-side scripting language. ASP is developed by Microsoft, and it is primary thought to work under IIS (Internet Information Server) on Windows NT Server. ASP enables the server to deliver dynamic, database driven content to the client with minimal effort.
Similar to other back-end languages, servers first read the ASP file to see if there are tasks that need to be executed. Only when the server is done with the execution part, the result is delivered to the client. The client only sees the result of the server’s work. That means when you try to view the source code by the "View Source" common menu in web browsers, you only the rendered HTML and CSS, but not the actual instructions that made that markup look like that.
But why should developers learn ASP?
• Language Independence ASP is defined as a scripting engine which helps developers develop in virtually any language. There are endless modules for other languages like Perl and Python that extend the engine implementation capabilities.
• Ease of Use You can use ASP on your HTML pages just by embedding it like this: <% and %>
• Hosting There is a wide support by hosting companies and prices aren’t high. There are more than 800 hosting companies currently supporting ASP with prices under $10.
• Extensibility COM components make ASP a limitless language. There might now be a way to send e-mail using standard ASP functions but there are a lot of component that will help you achieve this.
• Short Learning Curve It is easy to learn ASP if you’re already a programmer or even if you only know basic HTML. The learning curve is short and not so difficult.
• Huge Community There is a wide community of professional ASP developers ready to answer your questions all over the internet. So, you will never get stuck in some sort of trouble.
