I just went to the Radio Shack website to look for something, and after every click on the main page, I was greeted with this:
I agree that porting from ASP to ASP.NET is brutally hard, and usually forces a total rewrite unless you want “worst practices” code. You’ll get no argument from me there.
I still think it’s worth it for your flagship applications, however. ASP is just so primitive.
I mean it is just a Recordset.Open type of application. It will gain nothing from the port.
It’s his company, obviously, but I don’t agree there is “nothing to gain” even if you did a basic Reponse.Write port of an ASP site. Just having a properly functioning debugger and breakpoints-- which I don’t ever recall having in InterDev-- would be worth it as far as I’m concerned. I could probably name ten “bet the company” reasons you would want your flagship app on ASP.NET instead of classic ASP. And as Drazen pointed out, the least of those reasons is that ASP is on life support already…
Ah,
but Joel is right. On the other hand, you are right too 
Short term, he does not have any motive to move on for the reason he describes.
Long term, he has to move - ASP is not updated any more, and ASP.NET is so much better for the reasons you describe.
It is cost of switch against benefit that is crucial to deciding when to move. He estimates that cost is too big and benefit too small at this moment. I am sure that he is quite aware of the benefits of ASP.NET, but if staying with ASP costs less… he is a business, money ruleZ.
He estimates that cost is too big and benefit too small at this moment. I am sure that he is quite aware of the benefits of ASP.NET
Well, based on some other crazy Joel comments, I’m not so sure:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2003/10/13.html
That’s… uh… wrong. I agree with Ned:
straight port to ASP.NET
Say what? Since when is porting ASP to ASP.NET a straight port? I’d call it a rewrite. Besides, in an application like FogBugz (which I use), I really don’t see the benefits of moving to .NET. I mean it is just a Recordset.Open type of application. It will gain nothing from the port.
Maybe a total rewrite is too ambitious for the size of app he has, but I remember reading one of his articles where he cleanses the code base for a week or two. why not use this methodology in converting to. .NET?
I just revamped a 3 year old ASP site. I don’t think I will ever do that again. Bad ASP code was so easy to write and as long as nobody follows best practices regarding security and patching on the server, it will still run, but bringing that code up to current levels of “acceptable” was one of the least favorite tasks I’ve ever done.
If I had known then how bad the code was, I would have just done a full port to .NET instead.
Believe it or not I am still working in legacy classic ASP sites through my http://www.classicasp.co site which picks up so many old and outdated sites that are still up and running! It’s incredible how many people still require some support with this and how bad some of the code actually is!