ASP.NET: The Most Preferred Language for Web Development

ASP.NET (Active Server Pages.NET) is a standard programming language for website application development and more significantly for developing database-driven websites. ASP.NET was developed by Microsoft in the year 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework and is a fundamental part of Microsoft's .NET framework vision. It is mainly used to create web pages and web technologies.

It is a full featured programming language and a valuable tool for programmers and developers which allow them to develop dynamic websites globally. With the help of ASP.NET, developers are able to build variety of applications such as custom software applications, mobile games, web applications, product development, ecommerce shopping carts, etc. Languages that support ASP.NET are C#, Visual Basic, and JavaScript.

ASP.NET is the most preferred language by the developers as they have to write very less code for the development of small and large applications. It offers server-side programming model to make the development work easier which is the most advantageous part in addition to the long list of features. Before sending to browser, code is executed on server and the code which is sent back to browser is HTML instead of ASP.NET code which ultimately provides more security to code from unwanted theft.

Pages can be written easily in ASP.NET because of the following reasons:

It provides source code and HTML together.
Source code is executed on server which provides power & flexibility.
Source code is compiled fast in the first request of page because server saves the compiled version for the next time.
Better security of application source code as it is not sent back to browser.
Security through continuous monitoring of pages, components and applications running on it by web server which automatically removes the illegal software, memory leaks, infinite loops, etc.

Since the year 2002, ASP.NET is serving the web development world and has introduced five upgraded versions with advanced features. Its latest version was 3.5 Service Pack launched in 2008 released with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 with features such as incorporation of ASP.NET Dynamic Data, support for controlling browser history in an ASP.NET, AJAX application, new namespaces system etc.