Amrit Hallan

Learning ASP Series -- Your First ASP Page

ASP pages (Active Server Pages page sounds a bit ... butits easier to refer to them like this) are nothing but web ... ... is that they have an ... .ASP and you writethe co

ASP pages (Active Server Pages page sounds a bit melodramatic but
its easier to refer to them like this) are nothing but web pages.
The difference is that they have an extension .ASP and you write
the code in a Server Side Scripting language.

Do we know what's Server Side Scripting? This doesn't actually
matter if we delve into such nitty-gritty, but let's sound a bit
philosophically intellectual. Now, there are two sorts of
scripting languages:

Server Side (the hosting server where all the pages and programs
reside)

Client Side (the web surfer using the browser - actually the
browser is the client)

No, we are not talking about some corporate politics with all
this "siding" talk. Ok, before I begin with my bad sense of
humor, "Client Side Scripting" is what we generally see when we
code basic Java Scripts in our web pages to validate HTML forms
or implementing those cool image rollover effects or opening
custom popup windows etc. When you view the source of an HTML
page, and if the Java Script has been written in the page itself
(they have external Java Scripts too, but then that's a different
story), then you can see the script with all it's gory details. A
simple example of a Client Side Script written in Java Script is:



And then you can use it when the page loads:





A Server Side Script, on the other hand, does not manifest itself
when you try to use the "View Source" option of your browser. It
is a server side matter so unless you have the actual access to
the server, you cannot view the portion containing the server
side coding. But yes, the rest of the HTML matter is visible.

A typical ASP page looks like:

==> Page Begins <==

<%@Language=VBScript%>
<% Option Explicit %>