[Sophistifunk]

I think GP is describing the period before the .net switch. I remember back in those days having to do web stuff on MS platforms, which meant classic ASP, which was great for the job it was designed for: gluing together ActiveX components.

Unfortunately, nobody anywhere ever trusted ActiveX because it (at least gave everybody the impression it) had holes the size of a bus, so you were stuck using a limited language with no library support to do all the glue and all the heavy lifting, it was a very unpleasant period of time if you found your way into a Microsoft shop.