Visual Web Developer 2005...

Is bloody great... I didnt know ASP.NET was such a joy to play with! :)

I was making a website for my new company, with the usual portfolio, about us sections, and I decided to include a 'free online estimate' section on there.

After scratching my head thinking of what to use, I decided to have a pop with Visual Web Developer... And though and behold... it's nearly finished... I mean, it's only taken me 2 days to build, and I've never used it before!

Granted, I have a little experience in VB, but it does speed up a lot of the shiteness that comes with developing a website, well, a website that actually does something useful!

Anyway, it's great, I love it... so there! :P

lol, it's just ashame that I have only one website to build! :D

Dabz

P.S. I thought about creating a forum using ASP.NET, but cannot find a web control that deletes harmless threads, surely a mod here can point me in the right direction! ;)

*BANG - There goes another one* :D

If you want a real challenge, create exactly the same website using PHP.

Then make it secure.

Then make it work with PHP5.

Then make it secure again ;)

Hi Vinyl:
I'd personally just be a lazy slob and let .net take care of all that for me.

So let me get this straight without having to Google and read :)

If I were to use VWD in conjunction with a .net2 hosting company, then I could ditch PHP and instead do web apps in a language similar to VB?

Yep, that's right! :)

I'm currently using www.aspspider.net for hosting, it's free, though, you have to explain in a description why you need the hosting... I've just said that I'm using it for learning ASP.NET, which technically... I am! :)

You can use either VB or C# in Web Developer, and it comes with a nifty local ASP.NET server so you can create/test your website locally, before uploading it to the net!

Pretty cool, even cooler is that it's ALL free!!! :D

Dabz

I downloaded the ISO from good old MS, burnt it to CD, installed it and I've got to say I'm very impressed.

Granted I'm going on first impressions of initial testing but I think I'm gonna love this. It's visual basic for the internet.

I'll have to go into it a bit deeper for database and on-the-fly page creation but from what I can see its well cool. My current host charges £12 a year extra for .net2 servers so thats not an issue, considering my business needs for a host are currently only £100 a year (don't go on about cheaper hosting, 5 years with these guys, 24/7 live support and fast stable servers is worth every penny).

I have to say this is amazingly good, a RAD internet application approach which appeals big time. My PHP skills are average and the syntax for me using PHP can get pretty scary at times.

I've ignored .net since its release as win32 app development in the area I usually get work in does not warrant it (huge Delphi fan). Recently I've been doing a custom CMS for a customer and development was slowed down due to my lack of PHP skills and dislike of PHP syntax, so this could open up a whole new area for me.

Yes, I think I've found a new tool for web app development and I can see me investing in a VWD package beyond the excellent freebie that MS offers you.