ASP.NET vs FrontPage vs Dreamweaver

[Zygor]

I would value your opinions on the following matter. I am in the enviable position of choosing which program I am going to use, and I will recieve training in that choice.

I have never done any web designing.

I am trying to balance my learning curve and my professional advancement against giving the company what it wants in a timely manner.

I know VBA for Excel and for Access very well and I enjoy creating programs in both. I recently purchased VB.NET 2003 for my personnel use and I'm just starting some tutorials. I see a big (but not insurmountable) difference in the VB I've used and VB.NET. I assume the same level of difference for ASP.NET.

I am going to need to have interactive Web pages that retrieve (and possibly update) data from various databases (Access and Oracle).

I am asking your thoughts on which would be my best choice. I'm not sure what questions I should even be asking.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

 

[xwb]

It depends on what you are going to do in future. If you're going into Web Design, try DreamWeaver. If you're maintaining servers, try ASP.NET.

Frontpage is great for some things but it is not a top of the range tool and it needs your server to have front page extensions enabled before it will work. It is like the crosshead screwdriver that comes with your toolkit. You can use it for most cross headed screws but if you want do do things properly, get a phillips and a posidrive because there is a lot of difference in what it does to the screw head. Dreamweaver will generate the Javascript for you: you don't need anything special to be done on the server.

ASP.net is a Microsoft thing. If you're using a MS server, great. If it is .net enabled, even better. If you're not, it is like learning to speak Swahili in the UK. Useful to know but pretty useless otherwise as you will hardly get to use it.