Originally Posted by Kirtan

About cost:
If you decided not to host in a shared hosting service, It will happen when you go for big sites, and host yourself, you need windows server, asp and SQL server.

This is absolutely untrue, and totally misleading. ASP can use SQL Server, and you might decide to do this because it's a better, more featured database than MySql, but ASP can use MySql as easily as it can use SQL Server or Oracle. A person who decides to run their own ASP web server only needs Windows Server, which comes with IIS at no extra charge. Saying you "need" SQL Server if you decide to write ASP code and including the price is Enron style accounting.

Whoever you're getting your info on ASP from is lieing to you.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Your first priority should be to learn HTML and how to use CSS to make the HTML appear in browsers how you want it to look.
Server side code is simply a means of delivering HTML to user agents from sources such as databases than cannot be viewed by HTTP requests.
To use code to create web pages you need to know how to create pages in the first place.

This is really good advice. Sort of like saying you need to learn to walk upright before you can run a marathon. And a good way of explaining why/when either technology ( ASP/PHP ) is needed.

And for the record, SQL Server is free for up to 4 GB of storage. You can get the time-unlimited, non-trail version from Microsoft, or a 180-day free trial with unlimited storage, again from Microsoft.

I really hope nobody actually believes you have to spend $5,000 on a particular database server just because you write your web code in ASP.

While you can create your site in php, you may use apache's killer mod_rewrite module to create clean URLs, giving you a huge advantage on seo rankings.

Example:
ASP way
http://www.domain.com/catalogdir/wid...etail&id=12345

PHP way
http://www.domain.com/catalogdir/wid...etail&id=12345

PHP using apache's mod_rewrite
http://www.domain.com/widget/12345

More info:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html

I love it and google loves it too

Peace!

Good info, although using mod_rewrite or anything to do with .htaccess will slow your web site ( and the entire server its on ) down. Before every web request ( "hit" ) is made, the entire .htaccess file is parsed and acted on. Which means for any given page, your whole file will be loaded from disc, parsed, and applied for the html document, for the css file(s) linked to, for the javascript file(s), and each and every image. It's powerful, but a last resort.

Also, although Google is able to index pages with moderate query strings, ASP is able to do the same thing, rewriting URLs, using HttpHandlers.

There are plenty of reasons to go with PHP, but pretend weaknesses in ASP aren't among them.

I've never tried the HTTPHandlers way (because to the best of my knowledge, that's .NET), but ASP offers a similar method to mod-rewrite that is minimal in terms of server resource: the custom 404. It takes a few hours to figure it out (at least it did in 2000 when I figured it out), but it does work and works very well (the other advantage is that the 404 matches the look and feel of the site for actual 404 pages.) The 404 can be used to rewrite URLs fine, just fine.

As John said, this is yet another "pretend weakness". This is the biggest problem with the PHP vs. ASP argument...too many misconceptions about ASP.

Yeah, I don't think you can do HttpHandlers in ASP classic; I'd never heard of them until .NET. The way we always did this was code that ran at the start of the 404 page; you can send a redirect as long as you haven't sent anything to the client yet. And you can shove your data in session variables, so you don't need a query string.

While you can create your site in php, you may use apache's killer mod_rewrite module to create clean URLs

Actually this is wrong

Just because the code is PHP it does NOT mean you can use mod_rewrite.
PHP can also run on IIS which does not use .htaccess

I love it and google loves it too

This is also incorrect. The use of rewritten URLs simply does NOT make a page "Search Engine Friendly".
It will help if your site code puts barriers in the way of getting the pages crawled, such as 3 or more querystring parameters, but "problems" such as this could be easily avoided at program design time.

Man, this is kind of pointless. When ppl ask me why do I use, I say "coz I'm more familiar with it", and that's it. I mean common, how pointless it is to compare 2 LANGUAGES? Ppl do it all the time: php vs asp, java vs c, php vs ruby, .... Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Pick up 1 you like, and master it. For me, the only 2 languages I use the most so far are PHP and Ruby tho I do know C++ and Java.

PHP- its free!

although using mod_rewrite or anything to do with .htaccess will slow your web site ( and the entire server its on ) down

That must be some serious htaccess file you got going on or you only have top level one that does a sitefull of stuff. .htaccess is your friend and yes it can be misused but using it correctly hardly imposes any delay on your pages loading.

Apart from that i agree with "yellow1912"

If you use windows a lot go for asp if your a nix man use php. Its not too hard to make your mind up and both language provide you with the tools you need to put out dynamic content.

Originally Posted by BruceWayne

PHP- its free!

So is ASP. No charge whatsoever for using ASP.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

So is ASP. No charge whatsoever for using ASP.

No so true. If you use ASP, the cost is your dignity...because your using a Microsoft product

Oh god. The zealots have escaped from Iran. Microsoft is the Great Satan, and let there be a fatwa against any infidel who would use their technology?

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Oh god. The zealots have escaped from Iran. Microsoft is the Great Satan, and let there be a fatwa against any infidel who would use their technology?

How off topic.

No more so than pedantic comments about nobody who uses Microsoft products has any dignity. In fact, I think pointing out the silly fundamentalism and evangelicism creeping into this thread is very on topic.