Hello All -

Welcome to a survey and discussion thread on the best web programming language(s) to learn.

With what language should you program your website? Where should you focus in order to develop marketable programming skills? Not in ASP. Let's see why...

ASP interest waining

Look at the Google Trends chart above showing search interest in ASP compared with PHP, since they offer similar capabilities for creating dynamically generated web pages. Interest in both are trending down, though PHP commands a consistent lead by thousands of searches.

Next take a look at the offerings, by programming category at HotScripts.com:

Again, ASP's hold in this marketplace is about 22% of that which PHP holds. And, even though JavaScript performs quite differently, it offers around 83% the number of scripts that ASP does at HotScripts.com, with some overlapping categories (compare Javascript calendars to ASP calendars, for example).

Now consider this chart from Tiobe Software -- the Tiobe Programming Community Index -- and note that ASP does not even make the top 10 list of popular programming languages for Dec. 2007:

Note that Python, Ruby, C#, and JavaScript are all on the rise.

Finally, let's take a look at Google Trends for PHP versus ASP... in India. What are the outsourcing competition interested in these days:

Well... Indian interest in ASP is going way down with PHP crossing its path way back in 2005, which coincides with the last big activity in ASP (ASP.NET version 2.0 was released on November 7, 2005).

Conclusions? ASP is not the best language for future work assignments. PHP remains a good choice, though it seems to be leveling off in terms of demand. Ruby, Python, and JavaScript (probably because of the AJAX revolution) are good "up and coming" bets in which to beef up your skills.

What say you?

Yours -
Scott

ASP/ASP.NET aren't programming languages; they're runtime frameworks. Visual Basic, C#, J#, C++ with managed extensions, and even Visual Lisp are languages that can target these frameworks. In the .net world, all of them are compiled to intermediate language - a lot like java byte code - which can be identical even from different languages. Adding more flexibility or confusion, you can easily write a single web page with server-side components written in several languages.

It's true, as noted, that .net 2.0 was introduced in late 2005, but it's also true version 3.5 is current.

Javascript doesn't compete with server side languages - at least in a good design, it doesn't - it complements them. It's an add-on whether you're using cgi, php, or aspx.

Originally Posted by OSWebMaster

With what language should you program your website? Where should you focus in order to develop marketable programming skills? Not in ASP. Let's see why...

My experience has been markedly different. When .net 2 was released, along with sql server 2005, I was working for a telecoms building intranet applications. When I left the database held about 250 million records, and having skimped on the hardware budget, these lived on a single server. I partitioned the data vertically, into several tables, all with a quarter billion records, to be joined as needed by different queries. The applications ran like hot buttered lightning. In my experience, php doesn't scale up as well.

More importantly, at least in the necks of the woods I've ventured to, demand and compensation for Microsoft technology developers has been very competitive. Demographics might have something to do with that - I've been doing full time, salaried corporate work.

Now ... part of this could be that in the past few years, Microsoft has been doing a much better job with developer relations. I'm about equally likely to go to msdn as Google with an issue, and a lot of offline colleagues have said things along the same lines.

Hi Forrest -

Thanks for the clarifications. I understand that most ASP projects are actually programmed with VBScript, but know that other languages may be used.

Based on your comments, I believe the best amendment might be that the ASP framework in general, along with some of its component languages (see graphs below) are trending down, although well paying jobs still are out there since there are a number of large installations based on them in corporate land.


Here... interest in PHP, and component languages for ASP are shown in decline.


While in India, interest in PHP continues its rise, even above C++.

- Scott

How does the trend look for C#?

It should be noted that ASP.NET is the successor to ASP. As such, use for ASP would indeed be dying as people switch to ASP.NET. In fact, if you do a Google Trends search for PHP vs. ASP.NET in India, ASP.NET is actually higher.

I do know that the two most common languages in ASP.NET are C# and VB.NET. I think it would be hard to tell the true popularity level of ASP.NET via Google Trends because it can be composed of several different languages, and those different languages are commonly used for application programming as well.

While it's usually a general consensus that PHP is currently the most popular in web development, I am fairly certain that ASP/ASP.NET is second (or third behind a dying CGI/Perl.) I think PHP is most common in the freelance world, and ASP.NET is most common in the corporate world. For example, at the company I worked at last year, there were at least 5 or 6 different ASP.NET development teams, and I worked on the only PHP development team. Also, a Monster job search for "PHP" gives 2203 results, and Monster job search for "ASP.NET" shows 3735 results.

Being from the open-source side of things, I think php is on the rise for certain things, along with asp. In a recent blog post I discuss the differences between the two. It's not a bent article one way or the other, but rather how I've seen each used as a developer in my experiences .

Enjoy, if you read it.

Here's how I look at the situation: ASP was the only good server-side programming language back in 2000 when I started web design/development. There was CGI, Perl, and maybe a few others and I was too young and stupid to understand them. I was able to grasp ASP and do what I wanted to do with it.

By the time PHP rolled out and became used widely, I had already written a great deal of the same functions/subs/etc. myself. As of right now, I have over 3000 lines' worth of the same custom subs and functions that work far better for me than any other language's functions/subs ever could. So I have no need to switch from ASP to PHP, or any other language for that matter. There's no pressure for me to do it, and I can do things so much faster that it's not funny.

But I'm also a realist, and I do realize that sooner or later (likely within the next 2-3 Windows server releases) ASP will no longer be supported and .NET will be its replacement in the great Microsoft pecking order.

I haven't switched to .NET yet because I tried it about 5 years ago and didn't like certain aspects of it; specifically, that declaring a variable in an include file meant that it could only be used within that include file and no other file...this is not the case in ASP, and there's good reason for that. I haven't tried it since then, so I don't know if the logic has changed, but again there's no real pressure or need for me to do so. I'll change it if/when I have to, or I'll change it if/when I anticipate having to (right now, again, there's no need.)

The problem with ASP always was that it was set up such that there's a right way to code with it, and a wrong way...and the wrong way is the way we're shown at first. It usually takes a lot of reading and experimentation to find the right way.

PHP is fairly easy to figure out, but again...I have no desire to learn it, and I absolutely despise working with MySQL (I don't care what anyone says...working with Access or SQL Server is infinitely better).

If/when I have to learn a replacement, I'm with frost: I'm going the .NET route.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

But I'm also a realist, and I do realize that sooner or later (likely within the next 2-3 Windows server releases) ASP will no longer be supported and .NET will be its replacement in the great Microsoft pecking order.

Probably sooner. I'll report back on Windows Server 2008 in the next month or two. But it's already less supported in modern integrated development environments and test servers.

I have to say, what's available in asp.net is incredibly rich. There are things I do every day in aspx to pay for trips to bring my camera on that can't be done in asp with any custom libraries I've ever seen. I've had the type of corporate, high-scale jobs that not knowing this stuff would put me at a competitive disadvantage. Sometimes that's annoying; I don't see much real value in sharepoint, for example ... but it works out in my advantage overall.

What you want to do with the global variables is pretty easy. But include files are frowned on. There are a number of more modern ways to handle this style of coding ... the ideal is to take your pre-existing code library and compile one or more dll(s) and use the code inside the binary/ies. Being precompiled means your code is much faster to execute. Solutions in 2.0+ use a shared repository of app code. Static classes work very well, but have a slight performance hit.

Here's a question for a bright coder, though: I have far too much legacy code for asp 3.0, and vba/sql targeting Access. Some of the vba is pretty tricked out. But subs and functions have always felt too sloppily thrown together, with a lot of not so clearly defined relationships and dependencies between some of them. Deploying a particular module I've written always took more work than it was generally worth, and there was almost always some customization involved. How do you approach this? Object oriented development has worked a lot better for me. There's still a little in-breeding between some of the classes and interfaces, but having a lot of black boxes that each do a specific function independently, that I can pull together to do a particular task just seems much more natural to me.

By the way, with VS 2005 or 2008, Visio is built in. The ide can build diagrams from your code representing the classes, structs, interfaces, and other types you've created. I would imagine this works for asp 3, also, but I haven't used it in any new projects, so I can't say for sure.

And therein lies part of my dilemma, Forrest. I actually, in my ASP.net dabbling, read that include files were frowned upon...and that DLLs were the way to go. There are two things that bug/scare me about it (the latter usually means I get so pissed off that I end up figuring the thing out just out of spite):

1) I've never written or compiled a DLL file before or had anything to do with a DLL other than registering custom DLLs once in a while. As a result, I know very little about them. I don't know how to write code for one. I don't know what to use. Etc. and so on.

Could I figure it out? Yeah, probably. Do I have the time right now? Not really. Will I have to make the time? Yeah, probably.

2) I have a number of clients who have shared hosting plans that may or may not allow for custom DLL registration. On my server, that's fine; I have the access to all that good stuff. I'm not sure where Sectorlink stands on this anymore, since the last time I needed a custom DLL registered on a shared account through them was in 2003 for payment processing reasons.

That was basically why I stopped with it; I figured it was far too complex, with too many twists and turns, for me to want to take at the time. I just didn't have it in me when the language I was using and continue to use does what I need it to do and then some. There is nothing inherently wrong with classic ASP, other than that they gave up on it too soon. The built-in functions made sense (although a few of them did/do contain minor bugs), it was easy to work with, if you knew what you were doing it was dog-easy to build a site with some decent interactive elements without a great deal of effort, and it has always been the language I've found easiest to read (when written in the Queen's English.)

Hello Forrest & Adam -

Great dialog with some good points of value, I think. I know you don't like PHP Adam, but a lot is being developed with it.

I wonder if any of you have tried the free ASP to PHP converters out there, like this one from Design215? [sidenote: when I googled for that converter, I also found this link to a converter for HTML to PHP, HTML to JavaScript, and HTML to ASP. Interesting.]

Another "trend" is that (free?) open source programs are starting to be monetized (guess there really is "no free lunch"). This seems inevitable since programmers need to eat too. I think it also means that Open Source is here for the long run in competition with the Microsoft block of programming solutions.

Hey, JDFreelance... good article on PHP versus ASP. It seems like you have summed it up nicely recommending PHP for the Unix side and small - medium businesses for now, with ASP still "in there" at larger installations.

In your article, you write, "While Php is just as secure, Asp offers more levels of protection." I can't say I know enough to offer an answer, but my question is this: doesn't that mean that ASP is unnecessarily cumbersome? I have had the experience of working for Microsoft on a project, and also comparing their applications and OS to the competition, and "unnecessarily cumbersome" seems to be a good general description of their programming philosophy. Just compare the networking setup on a Mac to that in a Windows environment, for example.

Yours -
Scott

Hi Frost -

Good point about PHP versus ASP.net in India. Here is that chart, for those that didn't see it yet:


The search interest in ASP.net is indeed "higher" though interest in PHP seems to consistently pace it in activity. It is also interesting that ASP.net seems to have deeper "valleys" than does PHP. Not sure what that means, but it could point to the fickle and inconsistent nature of Microsoft's development cycle.

That CGI/Perle are dieing seems correct, too. And, I agree that Google Trends is not anywhere near the final analysis in exactly what is going on in programming. It is about search trends. Probably, studies like the Tiobe Programming Community Index have a better handle on the future for programming:


Here we can see that C# is indeed rising, as is Visual Basic. Anyone have an opinion on which of those two is better for ASP.net work? Usage of Visual Basic appears much higher than C# on this chart.

- Scott

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

1) I've never written or compiled a DLL file before or had anything to do with a DLL other than registering custom DLLs once in a while. As a result, I know very little about them. I don't know how to write code for one. I don't know what to use. Etc. and so on.

Exactly the same way you write any other code. There is no difference whatsoever in code that goes into an EXE, DLL, OCX, or even just a VB file that's parsed and interpreted and run on the fly (assuming no errors).

You know I have a great deal of respect for you, man. But acting like being forced to learn something in an industry that changes day over day is like getting a root canal isn't really fair to your customers.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

2) I have a number of clients who have shared hosting plans that may or may not allow for custom DLL registration. On my server, that's fine; I have the access to all that good stuff. I'm not sure where Sectorlink stands on this anymore, since the last time I needed a custom DLL registered on a shared account through them was in 2003 for payment processing reasons.

You don't need to register register the DLL files your ASP.NET assemblies are served up out of. You can if you want to, you can even put them in the GAC, but you don't have to. As long as they're in the file system, with the rest of of your web application, no configuration changes are necessary.

Any machine running Windows 95 or later is able to use .NET DLL files in this manner. That's true whether it's a shared host or whatever else. It sounds like you may have had a bad experience with a COM+ DLL file that turned you off to the technology that you saw one particular implementation of? But that's like saying because of some of the VB Script in some ASP applications, VB itself is an unsuitable language and ASP is an unsuitable framework.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

That was basically why I stopped with it; I figured it was far too complex, with too many twists and turns, for me to want to take at the time.

I think what you're seeing as complexity are added options (not requirements) that allow for better coding practices that weren't possible in ASP Classic.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

There is nothing inherently wrong with classic ASP, other than that they gave up on it too soon.

I beg to differ. Technically you're correct, but technically there's nothing wrong with rubbing two sticks for fire, either. In some industries it might make sense (how we made chocolate 100 years ago is probably how we make chocolate today) but I don't know of any company that actually wants dodgy, ancient, unmanageable code running slower than it needs to just because their developer isn't comfortable with modernity. Most of them don't understand that's what they're getting, but given the facts, I can't imagine any customer making an informed choice to have their systems limp along instead of sprinting comfortably.

That sounds harsh, and I'm not trying to insult anybody. I just can't for the life of me understand how there are Luddite computer programmers?