[waffffffle]

Hi. I don't know if this belongs here or in the server section, but is there a way to get ASP to run on X. By that I mean, can it be served? I know there's this thing iASP by Tenon, part of their iTools suite (not Apple's). But that's expensive. All the unix stuff for OS X out there is free, so I was hoping there was a free alternative out there. I actually don't know anything about ASP, but I know I need it. See I run a Mac user group on my campus and we want to have discussion boards on our website. Since we're students and have no money we can't afford to buy real forums like Infopop and vBulletin. However a guy in our group has actually written his own discussion boards software, but it only runs on ASP. As far as I know, ASP only runs off NT-like systems. However our only server-class machine is a PowerMac 7200 running YDL. But that machine has a G3 upgrade card in it, so we're thinking of putting OS X on it using the Unsupported utility, and then putting our website and discussion boards on there (right now our web site is hosted on the school's unix servers, but I don't think they will let us do server side applications). It would be really cool to slap that "Powered by OS X" banner on our website, but we really need ASP. I know the guy who wrote the boards is working on a PHP port, but I think he's lost interest so it may never happen.

So anyone have any info? Should this topic be moved? Thanks.

[Raman]

There are a bazillion PHP/MySQL free forums. All you need is a server that runs PHP and MySQL and Apache. That's it. And it's all free and you can leave linux on the box. Why do you need a GUI on that thing anyway? Put load Apache, PHP, MySQL, Phorum and throw it into a closet and forget it.

[HoofHearted]

sorry, the outlook isn't great at the moment, but there is hope.

As far as I can find, there are two ways to run ASP on non Windows web servers. The most common is Chillisoft, which is often used On Linux servers like the Sun/Cobalt Raq. It's got a good reputation although it's a pricey (for the linux world, anyway!). The killer is that although it's unix/linux based, a version for OSX isn't yet available and they've been cagey about whether they are considering such a thing ever since OSX Server 1.0 over two years ago.

Considering the amount of web developers out there on Macs, they'd be nuts not to I reckon. I'd jump at it to broaden my business from php in a flash (even if I prefer PHP, the option would be good). We might not want to *serve* ASP on OSX much, but having it on the desktop for development would be a real boon.

The second option is a Instant ASP which is java based and allegedly runs on ANY java enabled OS. Sounds promising but I haven't had the opportunity to try it, and haven't heard any reports on how good it is at running normal ASP code.

Oh, there is a product called MacASP which is a web development language but nothing to do with MS ASP (stupid name to call it then in my opinion!)

Anyways, I hope that sheds a little light on running ASP on MacOSX. If anyone has any more info or good news, I'm all ears.

[Kristoff]

Why would you want to run ASP?
It sucks as does everything M$!

Use Jive. Its java, its free. http://www.jivesoftware.com/poweredby/

[wallinbl]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
<STRONG>Why would you want to run ASP?
It sucks as does everything M$! </STRONG>

Actually, ASP is a very useful language. I've written a very comprehensive purchasing system in it. I've been intending to learn Java or Perl, I just haven't put the time into it yet.

You might want to check out ASP2PHP. You can find it at FreshMeat. I think there are a few programs that do the same. Check them out, one may work (with a little tweaking).

At the same time, you might find some other message boards on Freshmeat.

[Kristoff]

JSP is more powerful than ASP.
I wrote a COTS license tracking system a few years back in ASP and thought it was the coolest thing since poo-on-a-stick.
But, I have moved on to more powerful, less platform dependent things.

[wallinbl]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
<STRONG>JSP is more powerful than ASP.</STRONG>

This is hardly a quantifiable statement. 'Power' depends on the programmer. Besides which, .NET has shifted ASP to including VBScript, JScript, and C#. It now offers the ability to use a full featured programming language. Previously, using only VBScript, there were some limitations to program around, but those are gone.

I'd love to get away from ASP, but I've yet to find the time to learn anything else.

[BJPirt]

there is a perl module which when used with mod_perl and apache will allow you to serve asp's. not sure how quick it is but apparently it works well (and accurately -at least that's what i heard)

hope this helps,
bjpirt

[seb2]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
<STRONG>JSP is more powerful than ASP.</STRONG>

true, not very quantifiable. but jsp does have quite a lot of advantages over asp. among them would be stability and reusability.

i *am* aware of the origin and agree that sun might be a little, well, biassed, but i couldn't find anything "comparable" at microsoft's site. and a reply would be their style if they had a point to make. this is what i'm talking about:
http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/jsp-asp.html

[edit: typo]

[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: seb2 ]

[Kristoff]

Originally posted by wallinbl:
<STRONG>

This is hardly a quantifiable statement. 'Power' depends on the programmer. Besides which, .NET has shifted ASP to including VBScript, JScript, and C#. It now offers the ability to use a full featured programming language. Previously, using only VBScript, there were some limitations to program around, but those are gone.

I'd love to get away from ASP, but I've yet to find the time to learn anything else.</STRONG>

Heh... .NOT
.Net is just attempting to give VB programmers what Java programmers have done for years. It just so happens to leave things out like distributed transaction support, cross-platform support, security, stability, and the list goes on.

But, I didn't even want to open this can of worms. So, I will stop pontificating and get back to the point of the thread:

The original poster is looking for a free forums software that will work on OS X.
use Jive Forums. It's free to non-profits.
http://www.jivesoftware.com/poweredby/

[HoofHearted]

&lt;rant&gt;

look... everytime someone asks this simple question (can I run ASP on Mac), we get into this whole "ASP sux, use PHP/JSP/PERL" etc.

That's fine, but take that discussion to another thread.

I have a Mac and I have some clients who run web sites on IIS/ASP. If I need to develop for them, I'd be interested in running ASP under apache on my ibook to develop without needing a wintel box on the desk. It's not a question of switching development to another language, PHP is already my first language (and yes I'm sure JSP/PERL is better - but save it). A lot of people have a huge amount of time and money invested in ASP code, and as a developer I'd like it to get a share of that business, without having to buy a Win2000 server.

Basically, in the real commercial world, it would help me and my clients if I could do development in ASP on my mac, then move the code to IIS.

So please, take the p1ssing contest elsewhere and if anyone else has a useful contribution like the info about the perl module, the others in this thread would welcome it.

&lt;/rant&gt;

ahhhh, i feel better now. calm place, calm place, calm place...

[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: HoofHearted ]

[dogzilla]

Originally posted by HoofHearted:
<STRONG>&lt;rant&gt;

look... everytime someone asks this simple question (can I run ASP on Mac), we get into this whole "ASP sux, use PHP/JSP/PERL" etc.

That's fine, but take that discussion to another thread. </STRONG>

I think the upshot is that ASP itself will not run under your Mac. There are some systems out there that may allow you to emulate ASP to a greater or lesser extent, but they require PHP or some java-based addition to Apache to work. OReilly.net and Freshmeat are probably two good sites to start looking, and there's always Google.

If you find a good solution, let us know.

[Kristoff]

Originally posted by HoofHearted:
<STRONG>&lt;rant&gt;

look... everytime someone asks this simple question (can I run ASP on Mac), we get into this whole "ASP sux, use PHP/JSP/PERL" etc.

That's fine, but take that discussion to another thread.

I have a Mac and I have some clients who run web sites on IIS/ASP. If I need to develop for them, I'd be interested in running ASP under apache on my ibook to develop without needing a wintel box on the desk. It's not a question of switching development to another language, PHP is already my first language (and yes I'm sure JSP/PERL is better - but save it). A lot of people have a huge amount of time and money invested in ASP code, and as a developer I'd like it to get a share of that business, without having to buy a Win2000 server.

Basically, in the real commercial world, it would help me and my clients if I could do development in ASP on my mac, then move the code to IIS.

So please, take the p1ssing contest elsewhere and if anyone else has a useful contribution like the info about the perl module, the others in this thread would welcome it.

&lt;/rant&gt;

ahhhh, i feel better now. calm place, calm place, calm place...

[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: HoofHearted ]</STRONG>

Easy there tiger! This thread isn't even about that! It's about wanting a free forums software that works with OS X. The thread drifted for a bit, but then it returned to its original premise.
But, since you bring this all back up. The thought of running ASP on anything other than windows is silly and utterly pointless. ActiveX and COM are deeply embedded in the plumbing of the Windows OS (for better or worse) and whatever power ASP claims to have, comes from the fact that you can leverage ActiveX controls from your scripts. Now, since no other OS in this universe is married to COM/ActiveX like Windows, there is no hope of ever getting anything non-trivial from ASP on non-windows platforms without a serious amount of kludging/jury-rigging--so much so, that it becomes counter productive. Without that, ASP is just another "cold fusion" or PHP, or perl for that matter. The only difference is that database access without ActiveX data objects is out of the question. So, if you want to do a "Hello World", or a "the time is" page in ASP fine, but if your looking for enterprise class distributed computing framework, then barking up the ASP tree is...well, and excercise in pointlessness.

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Raman:
<STRONG>There are a bazillion PHP/MySQL free forums. All you need is a server that runs PHP and MySQL and Apache. That's it. And it's all free and you can leave linux on the box. Why do you need a GUI on that thing anyway? Put load Apache, PHP, MySQL, Phorum and throw it into a closet and forget it.</STRONG>

Ok, you mean put all this stuff on the linux box? OK, well that might not work out to well. I don't know this guy too well who wrote the forums, but he also owns the powermac and he has yet to get xfree working on his linux box. I don't have that much confidence in him getting anything else running on it and I certainly don't know how to do it. Everything seems so much easier to set up on X, but I guess that's because of the one-click apache. It would also be a slap in the face to this guy since he wrote boards, I told him we'd use it, and then I tell him to use some other boards software on his own linux box.

He tries to sell this thing for $50 but has yet to sell a copy. He has people interested in buying the whole thing outright, and he has some of the school's alumni interested in using it since he also works for them making their class websites.

This guy has an NT notebook that he got for free so we could run it off of there for now. He wants to get this thing ported to PHP soon so once that's done we can run the thing on X. It's just going to be a bit embarassing running them off NT. I hope no one notices.

[dogzilla]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
<STRONG>

Ok, you mean put all this stuff on the linux box? OK, well that might not work out to well. I don't know this guy too well who wrote the forums, but he also owns the powermac and he has yet to get xfree working on his linux box. I don't have that much confidence in him getting anything else running on it and I certainly don't know how to do it. Everything seems so much easier to set up on X, but I guess that's because of the one-click apache. It would also be a slap in the face to this guy since he wrote boards, I told him we'd use it, and then I tell him to use some other boards software on his own linux box.

He tries to sell this thing for $50 but has yet to sell a copy. He has people interested in buying the whole thing outright, and he has some of the school's alumni interested in using it since he also works for them making their class websites.

This guy has an NT notebook that he got for free so we could run it off of there for now. He wants to get this thing ported to PHP soon so once that's done we can run the thing on X. It's just going to be a bit embarassing running them off NT. I hope no one notices.</STRONG>

It sounds like - as is so often the case - that the issues you're dealing with are no longer technical issues but rather people issues. If the guy wrote this in ASP then you'll probably want to run it under Windows/IIS/ASP. I don't know if running on a laptop is the best idea in the world, but I suppose it's possible. Also, make absolutely sure that you've installed all the latest patches from Microsoft so that you block the many existing worms out there, and check daily to make sure you haven't been infected by any new ones.

If he can port it to PHP (shouldn't be too difficult) then your problems are pretty much over. The ideal solution from a technical and timesaving point of view is to ditch the whole thing and use a precreated (and free) PHP-based Web BBS system. But it sounds like that may not be viable from a people-issues point of view.

[HoofHearted]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
<STRONG>Easy there tiger! ...So, if you want to do a "Hello World", or a "the time is" page in ASP fine, but if your looking for enterprise class distributed computing framework, then barking up the ASP tree is...well, and excercise in pointlessness.</STRONG>

thats a fair point... without having access to SQL Server or running COM objects, any vaguely complex project couldn't be replicated on anything but a IIS/ASP/SQL setup. You're dead right.

But then Chillisoft seems to sell pretty well, so I guess there is some demand for ASP parsing on platforms than Windows.

I guess I'm just looking at a few smaller projects I have that have pretty simple cookie, registration and email based functions. Normally I wouldn't do it in ASP anyway, but when a client has their web site firmly tied up in Win2000, I don't have a lot of choice. So a way of running simple (and I guess I mean non com, non database stuff) asp routines on my mac would be handy for development, rather than coding and testing on the final server.

[havannas]

What do you guys think about this...


Here a visualization of an idea I've had for awhile....
If you can't figure it out, the idea is a text editor with one purpose: a language independant way to code for ASP and PHP at the same time. A person could write code in one pane then have the asp/php equivalents out put in their respective panes. I think this would be very useful for writing concept based code which is not tightly tied to either language. This is just an idea. That's my problem... I'm good with ideas but the implementation often never happens or is half-assed. Also I'm no php/asp god.... i've really just dabbled in both, though they are something I'd like learn a lot more of. I'm currently slowly learning Cocoa... I spent a good bit of time playing with it's visual capabilities and am now just starting to learn the basics with that new Aaron Hillegass book(I like it pretty good so far... I'm actually reading it away from my machine.... not gonna code again till I'm done with it). So does anyone wanna help develop something like this? Likely in a year I'll be up to snuff in Cocoa enuff(hmmmmm...) to do this on my own.... but I think collaborating will bring good ideas(and skill) into the mix. I have no idea how to set up a joint project and such but am interested in the mechanics of that too. So anyone willing to go APeSHiPP?


[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: havannas ]

[gee308]

I can't believe this question is being asked.
The simple answer is "PHP"
Long answer, I don't care what people tell you, PHP is better than ASP. It is also free, and there are MANY more free discussion boards written in PHP wiht either MySQL or PostgreSQL(i use postgresql) for a database. ALso, PHP comes with MAC OS X. It runs on windowx, UNIX, and PHP. If you are a unix newbie, now is your chance to learn some unix skills. I came from the Unix world to apple via OS X, so the BSD is not hard for me.
To show you how easy PHP is, I wrote this news site with comments in about 2 hours a couiple of months ago, but I haven't worked on it for a while coz of classes and my server died for a while. http://toywa.dyndns.org:308/app/index.php
I am using PHP with PostgreSQL on my FreeBSD box. the connection is my personnal DSL connection, so very slow. It is missing a bunch of features, but it includes, automated article posting with comments to each article. Sort of like a mini-slashdot.org http://slashdot.org

[carbondave]

You my want to check out Apache::ASP.

Here is a summery from the main page http://www.nodeworks.com/asp/ :
Apache::ASP provides an Active Server Pages port to the Apache Web Server with Perl scripting only, and enables developing of dynamic web applications with session management and embedded perl code. There are also many powerful extensions, including XML taglibs, XSLT rendering, and new events not originally part of the ASP API!

It's like ASP but different.... and better. No need for IIS or VB, use Apache and Perl. I make a living coding with Apache::ASP, and it makes my job easy because I can use any perl modules from cpan.org to quickly add functionality to my web applications.

I have not tried installing in on OS X but I'd love to see someone come out with some OS X centric documentation on installing and using it. The biggest part getting it up and running out be installing some perl modules and getting the config files in line.