MsWindows Web Development

I much prefer a LAMP environment, but some people remain in the MsWindows world. Rarely for a good reason, but anyhow...

At Axiom Legal (2001) I did this because we were really building Intranet tools, and MsExchange offered some handy EcoSystem bits (Active Directory which WebApp could authenticate against, MsOutlook as Fat Client to some non-web tools, etc.).

  • Note that even then I used Python Via IIS, rather than Vb Net or such. But you can find yourself in a small niche in terms of public support when you do something like that...

In 2009 I'm working with a company who's been in the MsWindows world a long time, so that's the main skill set of all their people. They have one Fat Client Client Server app they write in VisualBasic and VisualCPlusPlus, plus 3 web servers in ASP (V B Script)

  • 1 server is an extranet feeder app

  • the other 2 are public-facing content-sale (and 1 digital-content-delivery)

    • one of those runs a purchased/customized CMS; the other, being really just selling non-digital content, uses a purchased E Commerce engine

    • both work with a back-end Fulfillment System that stores product/acct info, and feeds their Accounting System with daily summary transactions.

A couple key issues are

  • whether it makes sense to have a CMS on a content-delivery site

  • how to bring in more Open Source components

  • if staying with ASP, whether there are good practices or extra frameworks to avoid spaghetti-code

  • whether migration to DotNet/Asp Net is inevitable

Colleagues at the Ny Cto Club say


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