I agree that TMTOWTDI can be problematic for newbies, but the issue you're talking about here is language-independent. You would have these kinds of questions if you were programming in C++ or Python or Java as well. In general, I think it's this "am I doing it right?" feeling that causes developers to use commercial tools like ASP so often: they tell you how to do it, and you just fill in the blanks! But the direction you're going is better, because ultimately your experience will lead to knowledge about what works and confidence in your methods to a degree that people using black box software like ASP can't hope for.