Lesson 13

In this module, you learned some basic information about Active Server Pages and server-side scripting.

While these are the pieces that make up ASP, the most important thing to remember is that ASP is a framework for building applications on a Web server. We have covered some of the advantages of building server-based applications, but all the advantages are variations on a single theme: control.
You have control over your own Web server, but you do not have control over the clients visiting your site. (Even if you do not control all aspects of your Web server, you still know all about it, and you can design applications based on that knowledge.) Client-side solutions are valuable, but with the proliferation of browsers and their features, you cannot assume much about the people coming to your site. In the following modules, we will talk about how you can use that control to build sophisticated Web applications.

This module introduced you to the following terms:

1. API: Application Programming Interface. A set of properties and methods made available by a system to the outside world. The underlying system might change, but if the API does not change then systems which use the API also don't need to be revised.
2. CGI:Common Gateway Interface. An NCSA standard for communicating between a Web server and other applications.
3. Client
4. Client-side: Running on a client, rather than a server.
   For example, a Java applet embedded in an HTML page runs on the client computer, not the server that sends out the page.
5. Component:In Microsoft-speak, an object that provide some functionality, but doesn't have a graphical user interface. Components are designed to be used on Web servers, where nobody would see a graphical user interface.
6. Interaction
7. JavaScript: Netscape's scripting language, which is intended to comply with the ECMAScript standard. JavaScript is a popular language for client-side scripting.
8. JScript
9. Method: An action which can be performed by an object. For example, ASP's Response object has a Write() method, which can write text to an HTML response as it's sent to a requesting client.
10. Object
11. Perl
12. Script: A short program which is usually interpreted, rather than compiled.
13. Scripting engine: A software program which enables some Microsoft software (scripting hosts, such as Internet Explorer or Internet Information Server) to understand a scripting language.
14. Web server
15. Server-side: Running on a server, rather than client. ASP is a server-side technology because the scripts run on the Web server, rather than on a client's computer.
16. VBScript
17. Web application
18. Web transaction: A transaction is an action that is designed to be atomic: even if there are discrete steps within a transaction, either all the steps happen or none of them do. For example, to transfer money from one bank account to another account, you would want to withdraw from the first account and deposit to the second. If the deposit fails (perhaps because the second account number was invalid), then you want to undo (a.k.a. rollback) the withdrawal. Managing transactions over the Web is a hot topic, and Microsoft offers the Transaction Server for just monitoring transactions.

The next module discusses ASP objects that allow the client browser and the Web server to request and respond to real-time variable data.

Click the Quiz link below to check your understanding of topics covered in this module.
ASP Object - Quiz.