Re: What is .Net?

..NET, in the way I think of it, is a technology, but albeit a broad
one. I have Visual Studio .NET 2003 at home. It is hard for me to
categorize it due to the number of things it can do. Studio is the key
word I think of because from it you can develop multiple solutions
from one basic platform. You can develop three basic solution
families: Desktop, Web Services, and Web Applications. All can share
some of the same components such as data connections (to SQLserver,
Oracle, MS-Access). That is, once you reference a database (and you
can visually from .NET studio drill down into your tables and stored
procedures (queries) and see what's in your database) you can use this
basic connectivity to use your data for a desktop application and/or a
web application. The neat thing I like about Visual Studio .NET (and
yes it is a software per say that you buy and load), is that I can
choose from such a variety of sub-technologies to accomplish what I
need. For example: XML, which is a file type (actually much more than
this), can be used a a datasource/database. The other day I was
working on a website design and needed a quick way of storing data. In
this case I simply wanted to store gathered email addresses on my
website to send out newsletters. Well I wanted to do it quickly so
rather than construct a table in an Access database I simply designed,
totally from within Visual Studio .NET, an XML file which, like Access
tables, is not a flat file.. the delimiting is done with what's called
markup:

- <topic>
<entry>Jackie Kennedy spoke fluent French. Her primary dress
designer was Oleg Cassini.</entry>
<name>Cheryl Robinson</name>
</topic>

The above was created in visual studio and is considered a record.
However, unlike Access, XML's markup like <name></name> indicates the
start and end of a field. But XML because of the extra characters for
the markup is considered 'verbose' because it takes up more disk space
and memory that other data file types. But my point is from within
Visual Studio I was able to quickly put together an XML file that
served as a mini-database if you will. (You may try this experiment in
Access - use within Access a capability to Export your table AS an XML
file to see what your Access data would look like if it were in XML
form.) From there I was able in Studio to create a desktop and an
internet application that used the same data. The beuaty is that I
could have with a little more effort (worth it if the database is more
complex), made a connection to an Access database within Studio and
used its tables as my repository for those email addresses I receive.

Sure .NET as a studio 'software' could be used on a single desktop for
the developer, you, and other people consuming your application could
do it as a distributed client front-end or you could have your users
have their client side be completely browser-based as a web
application.

ASP.net is a sub-technology within .NET. ASP means Active Server
Pages. You may notice two basic web extension on various website
URL's. Some may be relatively simple and end in .htm or .html. This is
good for static webpages, but if you are going to have your website
needing the user to move data into and out of your database you need
ASP.net which is a product that ships with Visual Studio. ASP.net web
pages have the .aspx extension you may have seen. This makes for a
webpage that can handle transactions as complex as those in many MS-
Access forms. An .aspx page can have objects on them that are equal or
analogous to MS-Access comboboxes, checkboxes, dataviews, subforms,
buttons, textboxes, etc.

I hope I have answered some questions. Just remember .NET is good for
some things, but Access is BETTER for certain things. If your goal is
simply to get a robust database used only within your office, and do
it quickly, and with lots of bells and whisles, do it in Access, it's
quicker and easier. You can always reference that database in .NET
later if you want to get it to the Web.




On Jul 20, 9:29 am, "Steve" <So...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Could you explain further what .Net is. Is it a software package on its own?
I have seen Asp.Net; are they the same? Can .Net be run on a single desktop?
Is there something that needs to be installed to be able to run .Net?

Thanks!

Steve

"slinky" <campbellbrian2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1184937092.649113.145840@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



I've also worked with Access for about 7 years and for getting a
fairly robust database up and running quickly it can't be beat. You
can really 'push the envelope' with Access and VB 6.x and do some
magic that a .NET developer would write a million lines of code to
replicate. So why look at .NET? Well I first started working with .NET
2 years ago and Access and .NET compliment each other well. I
routinely use Access (both tables and queries) in my .NET
applications. Although SQL server is the most recognized data server
platform for .NET, Access can be used just as easily. .NET has OLE
data adapter which is just for Access databases. The beauty of .NET
for me has been the low development time and ease of getting a
database published on the Web. An Access database I developed over a
period of 4 years and was very complex needed suddenly, by the
customer, the ability to view it through their website. Before I
learned .NET I would have had to tell them I couldn't do it, which
would have been the wrong answer.

Don't think of .NET though as simply a new version of VB. Although
VB.net shares many similarities to VB 6.x, there are key conceptual
differences that make it different. .NET can be thought of as an
umbrella under which sits compilers and development tools for not only
VB, but also for technologies like HTML, Java, C#, ASP - this
makes .NET the powerful tool everybody is talking about.

On Jul 19, 9:00 pm, Paul Brady <ptbr...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Apparently, I have been living on the wrong planet.
I have written 15 databases in Microsoft Access in the past 10
years, some of which are split, one uses ODBC interface with a SQL
server, one has a many-to-many relationship, and all of which have
Basic code to handle events and run functions which I have coded, and
all this time have never heard of .Net -- until today.
So, I looked it up on Google, asking for Access and .Net and
got gizzilion millions of hits. I guess this is big time stuff.
Can anyone direct me to a readable web page that at least
tells me what .Net is, and whether it is something I should know about
and use?
Thaks. Pete Brady, ptbr...@xxxxxxxx Hide quoted text -

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