About ASP
Active Server Pages (ASP) is a technology for creating dynamic Web sites. Most typically, it is used to create sites that draw content from a database. It was developed by Microsoft and usually runs on Windows servers, although other server platforms can be configured to support ASP. It basically comprises a library of objects and components that resides on the server and a scripting language with which the developer can control those objects. The scripting language most commonly used inside ASP is VBScript; however, ASP is flexible enough to use any language that the developer and the server can understand, e.g. Javascript or Python.
What's good about ASP? Its syntax is closer to natural language than that of some scripting technologies. Although it has a fairly steep learning curve, once past the beginner's stage it can make some tasks very easy. It offers a set of pre-built components for common site needs, such as linking pages in series. It has built-in support for Server-Side Includes (SSIs). It can use both server-side and personal database systems as its back-end, making it a flexible choice for smaller sites.
A related, though substantially different, technology is ASP.NET. This is a reinvention of classic ASP within the Microsoft .NET framework. Unlike classic ASP, ASP.NET allows the developer to run server-side applications written in a fully-fledged programming language such as Visual Basic.