From C++ to ASP

Noam Ben Haim

Hello, just wanted to share my feelings... I was a C++ developer for almost 3 years but now moved to another position where I need to do most of the stuff in ASP. I can't describe how much I miss C++... the mess of ASP... I am now holding my breath till MY company will give an OK to the .NET so I can start work in C# (not as good as C++ but on the way. it gives back most of the important things to web developing, IMHO) response (.Write...) anyone? N Noam Ben Haim Systems Developer Intel noam.ben.chaim@intel.com

peterchen

ASP is a fun toy for relaxing from distracting weird weeklong non-normalized probalility based debug sessions. But sooner or later you're going to miss it... Peter

return(sleep(year2sec(7500000),42);

Jon Sagara

I have been doing quite a lot of ASP development lately, though I have to admit that I kind of like it. :eek: There's just something about being elbow-deep in VBScript... ;P Jon Sagara "Ninety percent of baseball is mental, the other half is physical." -- Yogi Bera

George

I've got two advices for you: 1. For now: Run! Run as far as you can untill you find the place where people "speak C++" ;) 2. For the future: Always make sure before you accept the job offer that they do what you like. There is plenty jobs around to take your time to find a good one. It's sometimes tricky to know. I remember once to go for an interview where they asked me a lot of COM and C++ questions and then it turned out that they have a VB project to make. Lucky I figured that out and...run away :)

Paul Watson

Correct me if I am wrong but because C++.NET is a CLR language you can write ASP.NET apps in C++.NET too, right? Of course I would not recommend doing that, but you can :) ASP programming is a very painful task IMHO. It is not hugely challenging in terms of algorithms etc. but rather in managing your code, updating and maintaining and not producing an ASP page which resembles a spaghetti explosion. ASP.NET is the best thing that could have happened to ASP. PHP and other "competitors" to ASP will have a big task ahead of them in catching up to ASP.NET. Though I must say building web-apps is a fun and interesting job. I think the vast potential audience and the "community" aspect of it is what drives me on. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge

Graham Douglas

And I thought I was the only one! I was hired as a C++ programmer and was given plenty of C++ stuff to do. Then through the year those who spoke C++ left and I became the last of their kind. Now we don't develop in C++ as "no one knows the language." In other words, if I left they'd be stuck! I too am holding out for the great .NET to save me from the ASP and VB I'm now doing. And while it's another set of skills to have, I do miss programming in C++. Graham

Chris Maunder

Unfortunately you can't (yet) write your ASP pages using C++. You can write .NET components in MC++ that can be called from within your ASP pages, but it's not quite the same. Soon, grasshopper, soon. cheers, Chris Maunder

Chris Maunder

We share your pain. cheers, Chris Maunder

Paul Watson

I work for MOM (Ministiry Of Mis-Information), you MOI types really ruin my day... Then again me claiming to work for MOM could also be mis-information. Ha! Oh wait... Now I am confused. Well thanks for the correction Chris, now I will never get into C++ :-D The beer... found anywhere I can order it from? Just name it and I will order it. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge

Paul Watson

Graham Douglas wrote: In other words, if I left they'd be stuck! i.e. demand a raise. You are in a good position, exploit it. Graham Douglas wrote: I too am holding out for the great .NET to save me from the ASP and VB I'm now doing Muwahahahaha! Save you? *evil grin* oh but Graham, it will enslave you further. Enter the C# fold little one... Muwahahahaha!* * I am not sure how Bill Gates laughs, but this is the best approximation I could type :-D regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge

Chris Maunder

Mmmmm....:beer: It's 8:30am and I'm ready to call it a day1... 1 'Call it a day' == 'leave work and head home or to the local watering hole' cheers, Chris Maunder

Andrew Pierce

I too feel your pain. About 5 years ago, I was an accomplished C++ programmer. In my city, C++ has been hard to find lately. I have been relegated to VB and ASP. It's ok but I really love C++. I am known among my coworkers as a "C++ bigot". -------------------------- Andrew Pierce http://www.foomonkey.com monkey C, monkey foo

David Wulff

VBScript? VBScript? You use VBScript? You should be ashamed of yourself. Call yourself a respectable ASP developer? See the light - use JScript. It executes faster and is easier to use if you also write client-side scripts (as client-side VBScript only works in IE). I never have figured out why the majority of ASP enabled sites choose to use VBScript. Any ideas? Is it purely because the developers conceive it to be more related to VB, and thus easier to use? ________________ David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk Tom Jones once sang: "What's new pussycat?" But he's a twat so let's ignore that shall we? - Craig Pilling

Michael P Butler

David Wulff wrote: I never have figured out why the majority of ASP enabled sites choose to use VBScript. Any ideas? Is it purely because the developers conceive it to be more related to VB, and thus easier to use? Because it is the default language when IIS is installed :-) Michael :-)

Paul Watson

Michael P Butler wrote: Because it is the default language when IIS is installed Amen! Most non-techy people I know still have MSN as their homepage for Internet Explorer. The power of a Default setting :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge

William E Kempf

I don't think this is true, though I've not done the research. However, I don't see how it can be true. C++ is a full .NET language. If it can be done in C# or VB it can be done in C++ in the .NET world. The one exception is the RAD development of WinForms and by extension WebForms. Is that what you were referring to? If so, can't you still "hand code" the WebForms using C++? William E. Kempf

Navin

I should feel fortunate, then. The opposite has been happening where I work - we have been actively ripping out VB code and doing more in C++. And that particular app has never run better! The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Jon Sagara

David Wulff wrote: Call yourself a respectable ASP developer? I don't get no respect. ;P Jon Sagara "Ninety percent of baseball is mental, the other half is physical." -- Yogi Bera

Alvaro Mendez

I've done my share of Web development with ASP and I have to say that I actually like it. Sure, it's not as challenging as C++, but it's got enough complications to keep it interesting. For one thing, you have the Server side. That's done in VBScript. You may say, "VBScript, yuck!", to which I agree; the syntax is kind of ugly. But VBScript is a pretty powerful little language, especially if you consider that you can create classes with constructors, destructors, properties, etc. After a couple of ASP projects I actually went back and wrapped all my ADO-related code inside a class. That was fun and it made the code a lot cleaner and more maintainable. Then there's the Client side of things. There you end up having to deal with HTML and it's intricacies. If you have to support IE and Netscape, it's a pain in the rear. If you only worry about IE, then life is actually pretty nice. You can so much with DHTML on IE that your web page can behave a lot like regular dialog box. And for DHTML, the language of choice is JavaScript -- another cool little language which also allows you to create your own classes, and actually extend exiting ones! Case in point: I was doing some client-side validations on a field to ensure that the user had entered something. I wanted to check the trimmed version of the value and noticed that the JavaScript String class does not have a trim function. So I added this code to a js file, included it in my page, and viola, the String class now had a trim function:

var TRIM_LEADING = 1;
var TRIM_TRAILING = 2;
var TRIM_BOTH = 3;

// Returns a copy of self's string with no leading and/or trailing spaces.
String.prototype.trim = function(nFlags)
{
var strResult = this;

// If nFlags wasn't passed trim both sides	
if (!nFlags)		
	nFlags = TRIM\_BOTH;			

var iPos = 0;	
if (nFlags & TRIM\_LEADING)	
{		
	while (iPos < strResult.length && strResult.charAt(iPos) == ' ')			
		iPos++;		

	strResult = strResult.substr(iPos, strResult.length - iPos);	
}		

if (nFlags & TRIM\_TRAILING)	
{		
	for (iPos = strResult.length - 1; iPos >= 0 && strResult.charAt(iPos) == ' '; )			
		--iPos;		

	strResult = strResult.substr(0, iPos + 1);	
}		

return strResult;

}

Pretty cool, ha? I don't know of any other language that lets you do this. Another cool thing I discovered with ASP pages is remote scripting. You can actually execute code on the server without submitting the page. That's pretty neat stuff and, again, makes the page behave more

Klaus Probst

Remember to turn on Option Explicit :laugh: But seriously though, you can still code server-side JScript. At least it looks more like C++ than VBScript :) ___________ Klaus [www.vbbox.com]