Finally moving from classic asp to ASP.NET 2.0 w/Visual Studio 2005

[MartyNg]

I have been looking online for pointers, and read mixed things. I was
hoping if I post direct questions here, I could get some solid answers.

I work for a small company with less than 10 web developers. We have
been using classic ASP for years. We do a lot of work with SQL Server,
and moving from classic ASP to ASP.NET has been a bit confusing. We're
not sure how to get started.

Is there a good resource for people who are stuck in classic ASP mode?
We all have Visual Studio 2005 PRO and are not sure the best way to
develop. We do not have any source control programs. We have test and
production web servers. To connect to our database servers, we
currently use simple "include" files that contain the connection
strings to each database. We are not migrating any old applications to
ASP.NET 2 (unless necessary).

What's the best way to work in groups with VS 2005? Is it better to
create the website on the test server using "File System" via a network
share, and all developers work from that instead of everyone running
testing on their local machine?

Our webservers currently have about 100 classic ASP "applications". For
new applications, do we just create one "web site", and work from
there, or do we need to create a separate "web site" for every single
application?

If anyone could point me to a good site that could get us started and
answer some of these questions, that would be great.

Thanks!

 

[Marina]

I would recommend forgetting most things you know about ASP, as that usually
makes people stay stuck in doing things the ASP way. You all might want to
get some ASP.NET books, read stuff online, view some training material, etc.

I think source control is always a good idea. I would suggest that everyone
develop/test locally, then check their code into a soruce control system,
and that you do builds from that onto a QA server. Then, you can do
periodic builds to a production server. You should be able to have one web
site, with multiple applications.

I am not sure if you are going to find one resource to address every single
one of these concerns. I think you will need to do some serious research and
experimenting to find the right configuration that works for you.

 

[darrel]

I think source control is always a good idea.

I think it's critical with .net...esepcially if you are using VS.net and
compiled code.

We're just a two person group here and we're not using source control, and
even we are struggling at times.

As for me, the biggest hurdle going from scripted code to compiled/OOP code
was to break out of the whole 'include' concept for sharing code across web
applications.

You'll also see a lot of talk about fully separating your .net code in
codebehind with your HTML on the ASPX page. In asp, everything was
intermingled, but in .net, you have the ability to fully separate them.

I still do a lot of HTML production via the codebehind, which is partly due
to old mindsets, and partly due to the fact that I don't always find the
..net controls as flexible as I'd like them to be.

-Darrel

 

[MartyNg]

Well, I've been using VS 2005 for a few solid days now. I have some
database connectivity and it's pretty cool! In our current production
systems, we have a 5 or 6 connection "include" files that point to
different databases. All the applications with database connectivity
use these 5 or 6 include files. So, my next step is to find the best
way to have all my new applications work in a way that wouldn't require
a million different changes when a new database server gets added!