MsWindows Web Development

I much prefer a LAMP environment, but some people remain in the MsWindows world. Rarely for a good reason, but anyhow...

At Axiom Legal (2001) I did this because we were really building Intranet tools, and MsExchange offered some handy EcoSystem bits (Active Directory which WebApp could authenticate against, MsOutlook as Fat Client to some non-web tools, etc.).

• Note that even then I used Python Via IIS, rather than Vb Net or such. But you can find yourself in a small niche in terms of public support when you do something like that...

In 2009 I'm working with a company who's been in the MsWindows world a long time, so that's the main skill set of all their people. They have one Fat Client Client Server app they write in VisualBasic and VisualCPlusPlus, plus 3 web servers in ASP (V B Script)

• 1 server is an extranet feeder app

• the other 2 are public-facing content-sale (and 1 digital-content-delivery)

  • one of those runs a purchased/customized CMS; the other, being really just selling non-digital content, uses a purchased E Commerce engine

  • both work with a back-end Fulfillment System that stores product/acct info, and feeds their Accounting System with daily summary transactions.

A couple key issues are

• whether it makes sense to have a CMS on a content-delivery site

• how to bring in more Open Source components

• if staying with ASP, whether there are good practices or extra frameworks to avoid spaghetti-code

• whether migration to DotNet/Asp Net is inevitable

Colleagues at the Ny Cto Club say

• ASP is at end-of-life, it's really time to move

• and you should anyway, since it inevitably leads to spaghetti-code, just like f-PHP.

• migrating from Vb Script to Vb Net is not easy, you might as well just go all the way to C Sharp

• the Asp NetMvc framework gives some MVC/Ruby On Rails goodness on top of Asp Net

  • comparison of bits of Asp NetMvc to regular Asp Net.

  • review of book Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 ISBN:978-0-470-38461-9 including link to long/useful/free 1st chapter.