Hi

I am just wondering what can be done with MS Web Developer.
Are all sites created built in ASP.NET? Why are there multiple languages to choose from (VB, C++, etc.)

Basically, I really want to know if this program can be used to make MMOs.
I've been looking for some program to help me as SQL completely stumps me and hopefully this program can help me understand.

I'd like to think that I can use this program to make multiple sites, from forums, to blogs, to text-based games to MMORPGs (like Runescape, for example - I want to play with Java )
I will also make client-based MMOs, but that's in the future, once I've learned some more languages.

Sorry if these questions seem simple and pointless, but I trust you guys more than the scary internet

This post has been edited by Quin: 2 Jul, 2009 - 03:12 AM

Not all web sites are made in ASP.NET. ASP.NET code is written in C# or VB.NET. ASP.NET is a server-side system. When the user does something their input is sent to the server. The server responds and sends back the response. You could easily use ASP.NET to create a registration system for an MMORPG.

The actual browser based MMORPG probably wouldn't be written in ASP.NET. You would probably want something like Flash/ActionScript or PHP for a browser based MMORPG. What you could also do what is use Java applets to make an MMORPG, like Runescape. You might be able to do something with AJAX and ASP.NET, I can't say for certain because I know very little of AJAX. I've just heard that it is used with PHP.

You could probably use ASP.NET to create a turn based text MMO. Each turn the user would click a submit button, their turn would be sent to the server, the server would process the turn and return the results. It would be a game similar to Castle Age on Facebook. Each turn the player decides what they want to do, make their move and submit their response to the sever. The server processes the response and sends it back to the player. Exactly what ASP.NET was built to do.

ASP.NET is a framework. It's not an entire software stack or system...

That doesn't make sense either. Flash is client side. It's not incompatible with ASP.NET. Furthermore, why PHP and not another server-side language? That you are comfortable with PHP or know the most about it is not a good defense to this statement.

AJAX is server side language independent. It's not exactly obscure. A look on Wikipedia will tell you this.

In fact, this is the entire nature of HTTP. You know, the protocol that this world wide web runs on. ASP.NET was built as a framework. That the server needs to process independent stateless requests from the client and send responses back is not of ASP.NET's design. You seem to imply that though.

System might have been the wrong word. What I was trying to say is it is server-side. It interacts with the server.


I wasn't saying that Flash was not compatible with ASP.NET. What I was trying to say is that the actual graphics and such would be done with Flash. PHP seems to be the most popular server side language, it was just a suggestion.



Yes, that is what I was saying. I was just giving a broad overview of how ASP.NET works.

Ok

So I can use ASP.NET to interact with the server and database, basically by using forms (as you can do with PHP and HTML).

With MS Web Developer, pages are saved as .aspx (I think).
I'm used to .html and .php

But, what you are saying is that ASP.NET is a framework and I can do whatever on top of it and to my website.
This includes adding Flash and Java. And in order for them to respond to the database, I don't use ASP.NET.

First, yes, ASP.NET pages are saved as .aspx

Second, yes, you can use ASP.NET to interact with the server.

Just like you can embed Flash in an HTML page you can do the same with ASP.NET. If you look at the source code of an ASP.NET page, much of it is the same as HTML(not exactly though). You have div's and table's and span's, etc.

ASP.NET pages can also have C# or VB.NET code associated with them. When the user clicks on a button, you can create an event handler like you would do in a Window's form and create code to handle that event, like submitting a call to retrieve a record from a database.

Why not go to:

http://msdn.micosoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

and look at the source code for the page.(I chose that one because it was the first one that came to mind when I was thinking of ASP.NET web pages.) You will see many common elements to HTML. I might get flack for saying this but you can think of ASP.NET as adding to HTML in a server context, like Javascript adds to HTML in a client context.

You may want to visit the ASP.NET forum and ask a few questions there about ASP.NET, they will have better answers to your questions.