Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side technology that allows Web developers to create dynamic, interactive, and database-driven content for a Website. Typical uses of ASP include shopping carts, job sites, and directories.
Active Server Pages have an .asp extension to let the Web server know they are a “special” kind of file. ASP can only run on Microsoft server environments (no Unix).
For programmers, ASP is attractive because pages can be created using VBScript (default), JScript, and PerlScript. This provides a lot of flexibility over other server-side languages, like PHP, that only accept a single scripting syntax.
ASP makes it easy to redirect a user to another page. This is a useful trick for redirecting users after form submissions, protecting content on your site by redirecting users to a login page, and pointing an old page address to a new one.
“Includes” are the most basic leap from amateur Web designer to Web professional. The reason is simple: Web professionals create and manage large, expensive websites, and “includes” make managing these large sites manageable (get it?). If running large websites makes you nervous, don’t leave this page just yet. Even on small projects, server-side includes make life a whole lot easier.
