The Web is rapidly becoming the front end of choice for applications. Why create a custom front end that will run only on a single PC when you can deliver a Web-based interface to anywhere in the world? Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is part of the Windows NT operating system, and by using its Active Server Pages (ASP) technology you can create Web applications using server-side scripts and COM objects.
Visual Basic is an evolving development environment, and the Visual Basic Developer's Guide to ASP and IIS is designed for Visual Basic 6 developers who want to take advantage of its Web development features. You won't need to know HTML to use this book, since it contains a guide to ASP and HTML. The heart of the book is a look at VB 6's Web class features. Web classes are a way of building COM objects that are used to modify HTML templates. You'll learn how to use Web classes to query databases, handle security, and work with client-side scripts. If you're interested in using Microsoft Transaction Server to improve Web application reliability and link to external applications, there's plenty of information to get you started.