I am a long time programmer on the AS/400 and also a VB programmer. I am just getting into html and Javascript and ASP. It is very easy to test and debug programs on the AS/400 or even in VB. I find it very hard to do the same in html/javascript/asp. Maybe I am not using the right tools. I am using notepad to edit html/javascript/asp programs. Is there a tool/tip/technique that enables me to quickly debug and test these programs?
You've found the big weakness in Internet programming: debugging! The only thing I can figure is that people doing scripting/internet development are just not supposed to make mistakes. This glaring weakness is one of the major reasons that Microsoft is reimplementing the infrastructure, which is now called .Net. There's simply no perfect answer I can give you for dealing with today's technologies. I've been able to debug my JavaScript with the supplied Microsoft Script Debugger, but have personally never gotten ASP server side debugging to work. ASP.Net is so superior to ASP that you can't move to it fast enough. The .Net runtime is quite good and many of us have been able to develop fairly large ASP.Net applications quickly and easily that we would have never been able to do with ASP and JavaScript alone. I encourage you to look at ASP.Net instead of ASP.

This was first published in March 2001

Join the conversationComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.
    Back to top