   Learning ASP.NET and C#
  1)Is ASP.NET basically just the web scripting language ASP?2)As someone who knows C++ intimately and learned Java just from knowing C++ (they''re virtually the same syntax) can I pretty much jump straight into C# as a language for writing a small app with a couple of classes and some I/O?Thanks 
quote:Original post by d000hg  1)Is ASP.NET basically just the web scripting language ASP?No, and there is no scripting language called ASP. ASP.NET is a framework of classes and a runtime engine that lets you write dynamic webpages in any .NET language.quote:2)As someone who knows C++ intimately and learned Java just from knowing C++ (they''re virtually the same syntax) can I pretty much jump straight into C# as a language for writing a small app with a couple of classes and some I/O?Yes. --AnkhSVN - A Visual Studio .NET Addin for the Subversion version control system.[Project site] [Blog] [RSS] [Browse the source] [IRC channel] ;  1) ASP.Net is quite different from (old) ASP.  ASP was basically HTML with server-side script inlined directly into it.  Resulted in pretty messy looking files.  ASP.Net separates the HTML and the server-side script completely, and provides a programming environment much more like programming windows forms.  You place controls on a (web) form, and you can accesss their methods, properties and most importantly events, from code just like when coding windows forms.  ASP.Net handles all the details of turning your web forms into HTML, and automatically handling the communication needed between the browser and the server to invoke events handled by server-side code.2) Learning the syntax of C# is rather easy, the learning curve comes in learning how to use the Base Class Library, this is analagous to learning how to use Java API''s.  There are a whole whack of classes and namespaces in there, you just need to learn what functionality exists where. 