mono/web/asp-net

* ASP.NET

	The classes for running ASP.NET are being actively written.
	Gaurav, Leen and Patrik have been building the classes
	required to run ASP.NET web application as well as a small
	embeddable web server.

	Currently ASP.NET does not work, but work is underway.  If you
	are interested in helping the effort please contact the
	mono-list mailing list.

	There are a couple of components to the puzzle:

	<ul>
		* .aspx page parser (converts .aspx to C# code).
	
		* System.Web.HttpRuntime support.
	
		* Web controls (System.Web.UI.HtmlControls and
		  System.Web.UI.WebControls).
	
		* Underlying infrastrcture for the controls (System.Web.UI).
	
		* HttpRuntime.ProcessRequest is the core of the ASP.NET
		  implementation.
	</ul>


	Gonzalo has been working on an ASP.NET parser that takes .aspx
	files and generated the code required to run them (the code lives in
	module `xsp').

	Most of the runtime support was mostly written by Patrik Torstensson
	(now at Intel).  This was interesting, because in order to implement
	some of its features, Patrik had to go into the runtime/JIT engine and
	he spent a few weeks doing work there.

	Duncan last week got our System.Web assembly to compile, and he is in
	the process of getting the generated output to compile and link with our
	System.Web classes, but so far, most of the work has been in stubbing
	out the classes, just so we can get a clean compilation of the
	code.

** HttpRuntime

	Patrik has authored most of the HttpRuntime support (both on
	the System.Web and on the foundation) but it is still not
	ready to run.

** XSP

	Currently XSP provides the .aspx compiler to C#.  It would be
	interesting to see if it makes sense to extend the ASP.NET
	syntax to make it simpler to develop applications.

	Gonzalo is in charge of the compil.er

** Controls

	A lot of work has been put in the various classes that
	implement the controls (UI.HtmlControls and UI.WebControls),
	but they have been coded mostly in the dark, and without being
	able to test them in real life: Gaurav and Leen worked very
	hard on this namespace, but needs to be finished.

** Extending ASP.NET

	Currently you have to reference in your ASP.NET the control
	and all of its properties, which works fine if you have a GUI
	designer, but is harder for people used to develop using text
	editors.

	Since we have a parser, we could extend this parser to allow
	people to still use ASP.NET controls, using a simpler syntax.
	For example people doing blogs and editing their templates
	over the web probably do not want to use direct ASP.NET but a
	wrapper around it.