How to Publish/Deploy my ASP.NET pages onto the server?

Question

I am using Visual Studio and ASP.NET

There are 2 ways to get my site live over the internet.

1.) I simply take all my files after i build my Solution and place them in IIS. Thus both my Page.aspx and my Page.aspx.vb files will be on the Server.

2.) I Publish my Website and then it creates a DLL where all the code behind will be placed and i have no more Page.aspx.vb. Then i place all the Published files on the Server

Both of these work, but i want to know what are the pro's and con's for each please. I would like to just stick to Number 1 because then it is not as big of a problem if i need to make small changes to my code behind.

Thanks in advanced!!

Answer 1

For #1: The advantage is that the code is dynamically compiled. So, whenever you make a change to your source code (including the .vb files), the change will be instantly picked up. The disadvantages: 1. The site needs to be compiled the first time it is run after you make a change so it might seem to take a while to load for the first user who accesses the site 2. Your source is easily available on the server which is obviously not desirable if the server is hacked into.

For #2: The advantage is that the site is precompiled so that the site will start up faster the first time it is run. Also, the source code is less exposed (although the assemblies can be viewed if they are not obfuscated with a code obfuscator). The disadvantage is that you will need to re-publish if you make any changes to the .vb files.

Changes to the .aspx pages will be picked up by either method.