As the popularity of the web has increased in the recent years, a number of technologies are being introduced that can develop sophisticated Web Applications. COMPANIES THAT ARE PROMOTING THEIR BUSINESS ACTIVITIES THROUGH INTERNET ARE NOW LOOKING FOR A TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN DEVELOP DYNAMIC AND ROBUST APPLICATIONS WITH LOW DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE COST. Earlier the Internet Information Server (IIS) used to serve just static HTML pages. When the client requested for a page from a site, the server would fetch the static HTML page from the disk and send it to the client's browser. So IIS used to just act as an interface between the browser and a bunch of static files. With the advent of Technology, dynamic sites that could store the data sent by the client on to the database residing on the server were introduced.

Review of Earlier Technologies

CGI was the first technology that was introduced at that time. A CGI script normally consists of CGI libraries (which can be written in programming languages such as C/C++) through which one can connect to a database. However CGI has some inherent limitations. Everytime the user requests a CGI script, the server has to launch the CGI program which takes processor time. The CGI libraries have to be compiled every time leading to slow processing. Also, CGI is weak when it comes to connecting to the databases compared to the new technologies.

It is a technology that makes use of a set of compiled applications. Developing applications with ISAPI, is a complicated process. However the performance of these applications is very good.

The latest technology introduced by Microsoft. This technology was introduced by Microsoft with the release of IIS 3.0. It is a revolutionary concept of building Dynamic Web applications. With ASP, we can write script that gets executed on the server ( called as Server side script) the results of which can be sent to the client browser. The Technology integrates scripting languages such as VBScript & JavaScript. The programmer can choose the scripting language of his choice. Support for PERL can also be added to ASP. SINCE THE TECHNOLOGY IS INTRODUCED BY MICROSOFT, IT SUPPORTS OTHER MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGIES SUCH AS OLE, ACTIVE X, ADO, COM etc..

An ASP file consist of 3 separate parts – HTML, client side script and server side script. Whenever the client requests for an ASP page, the server understands that request is for an Active Server Page because of the ASP extension. The web server sends the file to a special program named ASP.dll which processes the file and converts it to HTML. The generated HTML file is sent back to the client browser. The first time a user downloads an ASP page, the scripts in the page are processed. The server stores the compiled code until the source file changes. Because of this caching, ASP files are not processed at every request. The Client cannot view the source code so all our business logic and algorithms remain hidden from the user.

1. It is a technology making use of existing skills like JavaScript, Vbscript. So the developer does not have to learn a totally new language, but the technology of integrating the scripts.
2. There is literally no investment required for ASP development, since the files can be typed even in a sample text editor like Notepad. However a number of Rapid Application Development Tools (RAD) such as Visual InterDEV are used to create ASP files .
3. There is no need to process ASP files at every request. Whenever the source file changes, the ASP.dll processes it and sends it back to the client.
4. With ASP, we can hide our program code from the user
5. ASP provides a number of built in objects with which we can send and retrieve information.
6. The ASP environment is extensible i.e. it can be extended with additional components created by us. There are number of standard components available in ASP e.g. Rotating Advertisements
7. It does not depend on correct configuration of the client system.

 Java

Java is an integrated language that uses an intermediate language. The source code of a Java program is compiled in Byte Code, which can not be run by itself. The byte code must be converted into machine code at runtime. Upon finding a Java applet, the web browser switches to its Java interpreter (JVM) which translates the byte code into machine code and runs it. Major features of Java are

1. Java is a complex, complete object oriented programming language.
2. Java in not complied in traditional sense. As written above Java compiler converts source code into byte codes (Known as Architecture Neutral byte code) Like all compiler languages, though, this adds the complexity of a compilation cycle to development and especially to debugging. However, like other compiled languages, an efficient runtime engine means that Java should offer better performance than general purpose interpreted scripting language.
3. A fundamental feature of true object oriented language is that they are extensible. I.e. Programmers can create their own classes or groupings of objects or data structures.
4. Object Oriented Languages tend to have steep Leaning curves, especially for non-programmers.
5. Because of the extremely open and public nature of the web Security is a major issue on the WWW. ASP and JAVA both provide very good security.