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Originally published at Internet.comFrom Programming Microsoft .NET. Copyright 2002, Jeff Prosise. Reproduced by permission of Microsoft Press. All rights reserved.
Authors note: The following is extracted from the book Programming Microsoft .NET by Jeff Prosise (Microsoft Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-7356-1376-1) The book teaches readers how to take advantage of the .NET Framework. It covers the key programming models embodied in the .NET Framework, including Windows forms, Web forms, and XML Web services.
The Web Forms model is part of ASP.NET, part of the Microsoft .NET Framework. ASP.NET advances the state of the art in Web programming by introducing reusable server controls that render HTML to browser clients and fire events that can be processed by server-side scripts. That's Web Forms in a nutshell: Web pages built around controls and event handlers. Once you learn to build Web applications the Web Forms way, you'll never want to build them any other way again. -----------------------------------
In recent years, the cutting edge of software development has shifted from traditional "fat client" apps to Web apps. The integration of back-end systems and seamless data sharing, once the holy grail of corporate IT departments, have given way to concerns over lower total cost of ownership (TCO), zero-footprint installs, and the ability to run applications from anywhere an Internet connection is available. The number one challenge that confronts developers today? "Make this software run on the Web." Unfortunately, Web programming isn't easy. Writing applications like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel is a well understood art form. Writing applications like eBay and Amazon.com is not. To make matters worse, Web development today is practiced with first-generation tools and technologies that have more in common with 1960s-era Dartmouth BASIC than the modern platforms and development environments that developers have become accustomed to...
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