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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T13:40:54+00:00

In the transition from classic ASP to Asp.Net some developers took to putting their

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In the transition from classic ASP to Asp.Net some developers took to putting their server side code in a block at the top of their HTML ala:

<%@ Import Namespace="MyDll" %>

<script runat="server">
    void Page_Load()
    {
    }
</script>

This single-page model has some advantages as Jeff Atwood describes, however, in my experience I have seen nearly all code put in a separate code-behind file in recent times (ie with VS 2008).

Nevertheless, it turns out a colleague strongly prefers the single file (inline) method over the separate code-behind method.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach? (I’ve noticed that code collapsing and #regions don’t seem to be supported. Also the pages get rather long and there is no longer the visual separation of client and server side code. Can you tell I have a preference?)

I realize that variations of this question have been asked before, but I haven’t seen anyone actually spell out specifically the pros and cons of each method.

EDIT

Thank you everyone for your thought provoking answers. I’m still hoping for a list of strengths and weaknesses of each method. What are the actual features that each has (or doesn’t have)?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Generally, when working in WebForms, the trend I’ve seen is to use a code-behind. Many* WebForms applications that I’ve seen in the field have too much in their code-behinds, and the separation is almost critical just to be able to understand all the logic.

    However, in a well-designed app where the UI is only doing a UI job, and passing all the logic and heavy lifting to a different app layer, a single-file solution will often end up being more elegant and easy enough to traverse. In a way, going with the single-file solution may — in the right hands — motivate a better separation of concerns, because you don’t want that one file (which provides your UI) to get cluttered with a bunch of business logic.

    In the ASP.NET MVC model, the default is single-file. This is, again, to stress separation of concerns and good application design. (I do not know off the top of my head if the ASP.NET MVC kit provides a code-behind concept. I have not used it if it does.)

    Ultimately, YMMV. Good developers tend to write good code whether it uses the code-behind or single-file model. Bad developers tend to write bad code either way, too.

    * Obviously not ALL!

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