RickSpace

So, I’ve gone from a job where I did almost exclusively PHP development with a MySQL backend to a job where I do almost exclusively ASP.NET/VB.NET/C#.NET with a SQL Server backend… and I could not possibly be happier with the transition.

There are a couple differences that really do make it somewhat difficult for a PHP developer to get his mind around how ASP.NET does things, but once you overcome the hurdles, all the benefits and advantages of the .NET framework and Visual Studio IDE make this almost like comparing Apples to Orangutans. I’ve only done a VERY small amount of actual ASP.NET development thus far, but from the books I’ve been reading, the videos (courtesy of www.LearnVisualStudio.net) I’ve watched and the conversations I’ve had, there is much to love.

1. Data
   • Browse to a table you want to use from inside the environment, drag it and drop it on your form and it creates the connection and adapter. Click create dataset and it creates a dataset complete with all the queries (if you ask it to) to do CRUD on the dataset. Drop a grid on the form, link it to the dataset and oila! That’s all you have to do to have a data aware grid complete with CRUD functionality.
   • Repeater - The repeater component is great. Drop it on the form, specify the look for each item, alternating items (if you want alternating color schemes for readability), the header, footer and divider looks (all called templates) and attach it to a datasource. It will now iterate through the entire dataset and display everything by the templates you specified.
   • DataReader - Holy awesome easiness. It is called the ‘firehose’ data access component. Point it to a dataadapter and set it loose. Each call to datareader.read() will retrieve the next row in the dataset. It’s lightweight and fast (no complex pointer needed, no navigation other than forward, etc) and incredibly easy to use.
2. UI Design - I’ve yet to see another web programming language with a passably decent WYSIWYG UI designer. VS.NET is GOOD and because of the code behind stuff, not only is most of the logic created for you, you can write that logic in a very very full-featured language such as VB.NET or C#. You have fully OO languages with tons of web-based events triggered automatically and a pleothora of tools… it’s just great.
3. User Control/Authentication - I didn’t really enjoy writing this sorta code in PHP, but it was manageable… if you’re working on an intranet project within your corporate enviornment, this is already done for you thanks to the way .NET works with NT domains. Given a SQL Server back-end, you can use your NT login to verify whether you should have access to various parts of the webpage, granular control over what data you see/edit, etc… So much time is saved by this from what I’ve already seen, it just seems incredible.

Okay, I guess that’s all I want to talk about for now. I’ve really literally not done much with it yet, but just looking at the tools, reading about them and programming some really small little test applications makes me think that I should have made the switch to .NET the second it came out.