Difference between website and web application in Visual Studio?

Question

What is the difference between a web site and a web application?

Answer 1

FROM MCTS SELF-PACED TRAINING KIT

Web applications and websites function and perform similarly, but web applications differ from websites in several important ways. For example, with a web application:

■ You can create an MVC application.

■ Visual Studio stores the list of files in a project file (.csproj or .vbproj), rather than relying on the folder structure.

■ You cannot mix Visual Basic and C#.

■ You cannot edit code without stopping a debugging session.

■ You can establish dependencies between multiple web projects.

■ You must compile the application before deployment, which prevents you from testing a page if another page will not compile.

■ You do not have to store the source code on the server.

■ You can control the assembly name and version.

■ You cannot edit individual files after deployment without recompiling.

Answer 2

WEB APPLICATION

• You explicitly compile the source code on the computer that is used for development or source control.
• By default, compilation of code files (excluding .aspx and .ascx files) produces a single assembly.
• Explicit namespaces are added to pages, controls, and classes by default.

WEB SITE PROJECT

• The source code is typically compiled dynamically (automatically) by ASP.NET on the server the first time a request is received after the site has been installed or updated.

• You can precompile the site (compile in advance on a development computer or on the server). By default, compilation produces multiple assemblies.

• Explicit namespaces are not added to pages, controls, and classes by default, but you can add them manually.