ASP.NET languages

[jim_TDR]

Hi all, I'm in need of a little advice and I'm sure a kowledgeable lot like you can provide it.

I'm confident with HTML, CSS, and ActionScript. I'm now looking to add another flashy acronym to the list to improve my CV. ASP.NET sounds like a great tool, so I'm thinking about trying learn how to use it.

I'm told by the people at w3schools.com that- "The .NET Framework is language neutral. Currently it supports C++, C#, Visual Basic, and JScript".

So this means I'll have to learn one of these languages, right? Is any particular one of these more useful in ASP than the others? Or easier to learn perhaps...? A few of the ASP self-teach books I've seen use Visual Basic so I'm assuming that's the standard or most popular language.

Any opinions or advice will be greatly appreciated as it's pretty clear that I'm clueless on the subject and fairly new to web design in general.

Jim

 

[Eclipse]

In my college experience I first learned the basics (HTML, JavaScript, CSS), I moved on to ASP, PHP, SQL and then VB.NET. ASP and VB were easier to learn.
You might be better off with VB as a starting point. In my experience I found it much easier to understand. When you feel comfortable with it move on to C++ the transition will be easier, unless your up for a challenge.
You might want to look into Visual Studio.NET, VB.NET in it gives you access to more tools.
This site might interest you:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/hosted/

 

[johnscott]

Hi there,

I've been a .NET developer for 6 years now and I have worked mostly with C# so I'm a little biased. As far as getting into .NET and picking a language to work with, I would probably lean toward C#. It is more of a real programming language...not to say tha Visual Basic is NOT a real programming language, but its syntax is structured differently. It's really a matter of preference...if you're a C++ guy, would probably like C# better...since you've done some classic ASP in the past VB might work better for you.

Try building a basic page that displays the system date and some other server-side values. Try doing this in both languages and see which one takes less time, and which one you prefer.

.NET examples on the web usually have source code for both language. In the end, it doesn't really matter which language you use, becuase the .NET framework compiles all the code into a Common Language Runtime anyway...so C# becomes CLR....VB becomes CRL...etc..

Microsoft also offers some free watered-down versions of their developer tools. Here's a link to pick up Visual Web Developer 2008 and SQL Express 2008. Microsoft's major development tool is Visual Studio Enterprise or Team Edition, but if you're just starting out, the Express edition along with the SQL Express database should be more than enough to get you on the right track for serving up some aspx pages.

http://www.microsoft.com/exPress/download/

I hope that helps a little.

 

[jonweb2009]

My honest advice,

GO WITH asp.net and c#

there are lots C# programmers than vb, and numerous examples and support for C# than vb.net

Moreover C# is structured and elegant... I moved from VB to C# later. canot go back again.