I think for this type of question google trends perhaps isn't the best marker. Try looking towards recruitment trends and you'll see what is being used, and the technologies that will be paying $$$ in the near future.

I haven't read the rest of the thread (bit rushed for time) but half of the languages you list there are completely different from each other. Python is mostly a desktop-based programming language and not used (as much) on web sites. JavaScript is client side and not feasible for a number of things, but at the same time PHP and ASP are server side and not suitable for certain things either.

Interestingly, you forgot AJAX.

I believe that for developing, PHP, JS and obviously HTML are very necessary. If you decide you want to work on Windows servers rather than Linux, then simply use ASP in place of PHP. The whole PHP vs ASP war thing is pretty complex - I couldn't say for sure I knew which was things are going at the moment but PHP is obviously more widely used than ASP on the web at the moment.

Ruby on Rails is certainly growing in demand - it's something I must confess I don't know too much about though as my focus recently has been on learning PHP and MySQL.

Dan

I see that this thread is heading the wrong way. (I was only able to breifly read the first page).

PHP over ASP.Net? Or any other language? I will hand it to PHP fully they are doing a great job. But it most likely won't last. The reasons for this is that it is opensource and there isn't really a money backbone. Unlike JSP or ASP.Net you have some huge cooperations dumping millions of dollars to make their language better. I believe right now that the cooperations will go over the opensource deals.

Also .Net is a frame work. And being the framework you can use any of the following languages to program in it:

-Ada
-Apl
-Caml
-COBOL
-Eiffel
-Forth
-Fortran
-JavaScript
-Oberon
-Perl
-Pascal
-PHP (Yes, its true)
-Python
-PRG
-Scheme
-Small Talk
-VB
-C#

This is a long list with PHP in there. So more people learn PHP, really I don't think it is a bad thing, They can still take full advantage of the .Net framework and the PHP programmers that choose not too will most likely suffer in the long run. All these languages will be moved into MSIL and so the language of prefrence isn't a big deal.

But all in all, if I would roll the dice I will have to say Microsoft will out last PHP. I mean almost everyone in the world uses Windows. Xbox just out sold Sony and Nintendo, and I believe Microsoft won't just roll over if their language isn't the most learned out there. They will simple "out-last" them in funding (brutal)

Here are some commom debunks of ASP.Net:

- ASP.NET can only run on Windows:

Wrong, it can support Linux, MAC, it is a cross platform deal

-ASP.NET is serverside, so it can't do any client side stuff right?

Yes, it can. C# and VB do it for ASP.NET. Also the best thing about this is that it actually will run faster and do clientside stuff because it will only compile the C# or VB (Or whatever you use) when you need it. So it doesn't bog down the browser with all this code. It just uses clientside with the browser that allow it and doesn't compile it when not needed.

-ASP.Net tools cost alot of money.

No, actually they are free. Most people don't relize that.

-ASP.Net isn't opensource, so you can't alter the language like PHP:

ASP.NET does support this type of use. It isn't recommended but you can freely do it. You can alter the compiler to do different things. You create your own language and it Bob.Net .

-Shadow9997

I'm another resource you can tap if you'd like. I'm not a specialist in .net, but it's a good deal of the dev work I've been doing lately. I've even been known to lend friends my own proprietary code and explain the hows and whys. It sounds like John is probably the resident expert here, but if a question comes up, don't hesitate to send an email my way, either.

There are some things I find very useful in the .net framework, but on the other hand, I still have a couple of MS Access apps I've written, using VBA as part of the office document. Microsoft still has a few asp apps. Most of the large scale web applications I've worked on have been a mixture of both. It makes sense to take advantage of the new stuff when it's useful, and to not waste time rewriting the old stuff that still does everything people need from it.

Hello All -

Glad the thread worked out well as a programming learning resource. One more post on the original topic.

The last Google search interest trend we looked at was for ASP.net versus PHP... in India. But what is the interest in other regions of the world?

Here ya go:


It looks like the Indians are a bit lonely in their interest for ASP.net. PHP is sliding down quite a bit too, in terms of world interest.

Your thoughts?

- Scott

Well, looking at the charts it seems that India is doing the right thing. Being that India is doing a lot of computer programming now (and increasing) and the rest of the world seems to be depreciating in that area it seems that India would have to be doing something right . They are using ASP.Net (and cheap labor, which will soon change for the U.S.). Just wait, ASP.Net will start coming back up very quickly.

Also looking at the other chart it seems that all the languages are taking a dip. But ASP.Net's dip is very well small. PHP being the greatest and on a constant decrease, where as ASP.Net and C# are fairly flat and then have a small decrease. If you had to choose I would go with ASP.Net (with C#) because it is fairly more stable than PHP. PHP tends to hipe up and jump down.

-Shadow9997

Of course ASP.NET is growing quickly in India. That's where American corporations are outsourcing whereas Europe emphasizes open source.

Yes Joder, and that is why I think ASP.Net is better. Aren't we in America , and don't we want to promote our American cooperations? And thats not too big of a reason (It is one though) being that web design isn't that out sourced, unlike programming (applications) they outsource like there is no tomorrow. Thats why I wasn't surprised to see C# way up there. You can do a lot of Windows applications with C#.

Also I believe Europe is hurting because of their opensource preference. They sue Microsoft when ever they find a slight nick.( I think they sued Microsoft for some 100 million for having Windows Media player included on their OS, that was quite recently too. ). For some reason Europe feels that Windows Media player will hurt them too much, or something.

-Shadow9997