ASP.NETTechnique1.BuildingASP.NETPagesASP.NETandthe.NETFrameworkASP.NETispartofMicrosoft'soverall.NETframework,whichcontainsavastsetofprogrammingclassesdesignedtosatisfyanyconceivableprogrammingneed.Inthefollowingtwosections,youlearnhowASP.NETfitswithinthe.NETframework,andyoulearnaboutthelanguagesyoucanuseinyourASP.NETpages.The.NETFrameworkClassLibraryImaginethatyouareMicrosoft.Imaginethatyouhavetosupportmultipleprogramminglanguages—suchasVisualBasic,JScript,andC++.Agreatdealofthefunctionalityoftheseprogramminglanguagesoverlaps.Forexample,foreachlanguage,youwouldhavetoincludemethodsforaccessingthefilesystem,workingwithdatabases,andmanipulatingstrings.Furthermore,theselanguagescontainsimilarprogrammingconstructs.Everylanguage,forexample,canrepresentloopsandconditionals.EventhoughthesyntaxofaconditionalwritteninVisualBasicdiffersfromthesyntaxofaconditionalwritteninC++,theprogrammingfunctionisthesame.Finally,mostprogramminglanguageshavesimilarvariabledatatypes.Inmostlanguages,youhavesomemeansofrepresentingstringsandintegers,forexample.Themaximumandminimumsizeofanintegermightdependonthelanguage,butthebasicdatatypeisthesame.Maintainingallthisfunctionalityformultiplelanguagesrequiresalotofwork.Whykeepreinventingthewheel?Wouldn'titbeeasiertocreateallthisfunctionalityonceanduseitforeverylanguage?The.NETFrameworkClassLibrarydoesexactlythat.Itconsistsofavastsetofclassesdesignedtosatisfyanyconceivableprogrammingneed.Forexample,the.NETframeworkcontainsclassesforhandlingdatabaseaccess,workingwiththefilesystem,manipulatingtext,andgeneratinggraphics.Inaddition,itcontainsmorespecializedclassesforperformingtaskssuchasworkingwithregularexpressionsandhandlingnetworkprotocols.The.NETframework,furthermore,containsclassesthatrepresentallthebasicvariabledatatypessuchasstrings,integers,bytes,characters,andarrays.Mostimportantly,forpurposesofthisbook,the.NETFrameworkClassLibrarycontainsclassesforbuildingASP.NETpages.Youneedtounderstand,however,thatyoucanaccessanyofthe.NETframeworkclasseswhenyouarebuildingyourASP.NETpages.UnderstandingNamespacesAsyoumightguess,the.NETframeworkishuge.Itcontainsthousandsofclasses(over3,400).Fortunately,theclassesarenotsimplyjumbledtogether.Theclassesofthe.NETframeworkareorganizedintoahierarchyofnamespaces.ASPClassicNoteInpreviousversionsofActiveServerPages,youhadaccesstoonlyfivestandardclasses(theResponse,Request,Session,Application,andServerobjects).ASP.NET,incontrast,providesyouwithaccesstoover3,400classes!Anamespaceisalogicalgroupingofclasses.Forexample,alltheclassesthatrelatetoworkingwiththefilesystemaregatheredtogetherintotheSystem.IOnamespace.Thenamespacesareorganizedintoahierarchy(alogicaltree).AttherootofthetreeistheSystemnamespace.Thisnamespacecontainsalltheclassesforthebasedatatypes,suchasstringsandarrays.Italsocontainsclassesforworkingwithrandomnumbersanddatesandtimes.Youcanuniquelyidentifyanyclassinthe.NETframeworkbyusingthefullnamespaceoftheclass.Forexample,touniquelyrefertotheclassthatrepresentsafilesystemfile(theFileclass),youwouldusethefollowing:System.IO.FileSystem.IOreferstothenamespace,andFilereferstotheparticularclass.NOTEYoucanviewallthenamespacesofthestandardclassesinthe.NETFrameworkClassLibrarybyviewingtheReferenceDocumentationforthe.NETFramework.StandardASP.NETNamespacesTheclassescontainedinaselectnumberofnamespacesareavailableinyourASP.NE...