> So, Why would anyone go for asp.net? The .NET development environment. Visual Studio is dead simple to install and use. Add-ins have been easy to install,

> So, Why would anyone go for asp.net? The .NET development environment. Visual Studio is dead simple to install and use. Add-ins have been easy to install, too. (I'm looking at you, Eclipse!) The .NET Framework has great breadth and depth. It integrates well with MS SQL Server. There are plenty of quality 3rd party tools/libraries that work with the stack. API documentation is easy to get to. Building install packages is a snap. Visual designers can make building/understanding components or the database schema easier. Code generation from the designers can fill in boiler-plate stuff yet still leave it visible if you need to dig around in there by hand. As for ASP.NET WebForms (which is the sample you've given), it was meant to make it easier for Windows Forms developers to do web page design. WebForms imitates the WinForms structure and calling conventions, so you can make a working web page act more like a desktop app in terms of the programming model. Obviously, you run into limitations rather quickly because the WebForms abstraction is very leaky. ASP.NET MVC would be a good pick for new projects if you are already an experienced web developer. You get all the benefits of the .NET stack without the limitations of WebForms. You get control over the markup that gets generated and it does a good job with separation of concerns. I recommend.