Classic ASP History

What is Classic ASP?
Active Server Pages, known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic was originally released back in 1996 as Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically generated web pages. A majority of these Active Server Pages were written in VBScript. Part of the power of Classic ASP is its ability to connect to a variety of databases including MSSQL, Access, Oracle, Mysql and virtually any database with the appropriate drivers.
The ASP in Classic ASP stands for Active Server Pages. It was and still is a language which is used to create web applications - specifically, applications that are dynamic meaning that the content changes based on who is accessing it, what they do with the application, and the time of the day. In short, it's a language that allows interactive web pages and the ability to pull data from databases.

Classic ASP is still used on a surprisingly large number of web sites - most of which were designed some time ago and see no reason to recode, after all, why change something that is not broken?

Classic ASP is a simple scripting language based on VBScript. ASP stands for "Active Server Pages" and was one of the first dynamic web based technologies Microsoft created for use with their web server called IIS (Internet Information Server). Complex control sequences and database connectivity are built into ASP which allow programmers unlimited flexibility.

Microsoft released ASP 2.0 in 1997 followed by ASP 3.0 in 2000. From here, Microsoft released ASP+ in 2001 which was the first identifiable forerunner of the .NET framework. For this reason, Classic ASP can still be used in many of the .NET components and features.

Even today, you can use some inline Classic ASP code in your .NET projects. Classic ASP also formed the basis of the very first version of ASP.NET (then called ASP+).

Are there still any benefits to using Classic ASP?
Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Despite ASP being an older technology, Classic ASP developers will typically find their code runs slightly quicker when compared with a similar task being carried out using C#/VB.NET ASP.NET. There are a few reasons for this including a dramatic improvement in speed and performance of computers since the late 90's. As a result of being simpler technology Classic ASP also has less overheads than many other features in ASP.NET or other newer languages. In addition, Classic ASP can save costs for new web sites due to a lot of features and functionality have already been created. Many Classic ASP Developers have a large set of pre-written code that they can re purpose without having to rewrite functionality in a different language.

The biggest pitfall to ASP of course is that, despite all of this, it is not 'officially' supported anymore. You may find it difficult to work with many modern features the web now enjoys (or may end up having to write most of them yourself) without being able to reuse other people's libraries quite as freely as you might with ASP.NET.
However, any current website we create in order to save Clients money utilizing Classic ASP are fully responsive and mobile friendly as well as optimized for SEO.

If you have an existing Classic ASP Web site or application, we often tell people not to move away from Classic ASP unless there is a strong business case for it. if you would benefit from rebuilding your project in ASP.NET or PHP or any other language due to ongoing support, maintenance or to take advantage of new features then we can help you with that.

We are experienced in a variety of languages including Classic ASP development and specialize in providing Classic ASP support and maintenance.

For many companies, a lot of time and money has been invested in developing their Classic ASP Web site or Internal Business applications and completely rebuilding their web site using a newer language may be cost prohibitive. There is also considerable risk that during a complete rewrite of a complex system that existing critical functionality may be lost or stop working.

Our goal is to provide you support and maintenance for your existing Classic ASP applications so you can focus on Business instead of infrastructure.

If you are in need of classic ASP developers, Development Services, support, maintenance, or need to upgrade to a newer platform Contact UsToday!