General Question About Web Apps, VB/ASP?

[Aziz]

Hello, my employer wants me to add a shopping basket type system in
which users can buy and sell a commodity (everything is held as credit,
no physical product exchanges hands). He wants me to initially add it
to our existing company website (built in Silverstream). Eventually the
whole website will need to be updated to move away from Silverstream.

Now I realise I'll have to have a database backend (probably mySQL) but
what what do I program the buying/selling part with? I am quite
familiar with VB .NET 2003 so is it possible to build such a system
using VB or would I be better off using something like ASP.NET? How
hard is it to move to using VB on the web or to ASP.NET (bearing in
mind I don't know HTML, but could learn).

 

[Tom Scales]

Personally, I'd look at integrated an already built shopping cart system.
They're very complex, must perform flawlessly, and have been built over and
over.

 

[Aziz]

Unfortunately the system I need to build is very proprietory and it
seems as if adapting an existing shopping system would be as
complicated as building it from scratch. I've already started a VB
webform prototype and it seems it would be possible, but how robust is
a VB based web app? (it won't be a very busy website, maybe 10-15
people max at a time using it). Are the ADO.NET concepts behind it the
same as a windows application?

 

[tomb]

Me? I would use one of the wonderfully built PHP shopping carts.
They're free, and they perform well. It makes no difference what the
rest of your site is like - the cart is just a cart, and processes payments.

Tom

 

[raibeart]

How propritary is a shopping cart? The functionality is the same no
matter the language.
I was not aware there was a "VB WebForm" Web based means HTML, ASP.Net
and browser,
therefore, VB could be used as the script language. There are a lot of
sites done with it.

Go to http:www.ayobride.com to see one.

 

[Guest]

I've already started a VB
webform prototype and it seems it would be possible, but how robust is
a VB based web app?

As robust as your write it.

However, Web apps are very different than winforms app - if possible, I
would get a .NET web developer on board to support you. The .NET web
developer could build the front end - while you can focus your skills on
the back end logic/components (which are identical to desktop/service
programming)