Hi,

Which is better? I know a little about ASP.Net and would like to see a conversation between the local webmasters to see which is better. I will reply when necessary, but would like to use this thread as more as a learning one for me.

Thanks,
Shadow9997

P.S. I don't know if this topic belongs here, if not let me know please.

I wouldn't say either is necessarily better than the other.

The main consideration in choosing one over the other depends on which direction you see yourself going. This is a big generalization, but typically PHP developers will lean toward the open source side of things and ASP developers will lean toward the enterprise and Microsoft side of things.

I can't fairly speak about ASP.net since I'm on the PHP side of things. I prefer not to get locked into the Microsoft way of doing things and like spirit behind open source. But I won't tell you that PHP is better because I use it. It's just a little different.

Consider more the direction you want your career to move. Look at some job boards and take note of the jobs you think you'd like and look at the requirements the companies are asking for in the ads. That will give you a good feel for which languages you'll want to learn.

Know also that either way you'll still be able to develop web applications.

Van G described things well. For the most part, php devs seem to work exclusively with open source tools, occasionally contribute to them, and often work in dot com startups. Asp.net people often go the enterprise route, mainly because asp.net, when used well, is an extremely scalable framework, well suited to enterprise development. I work in a company / web site that advertises heavily and brings 200,000 people an hour through our site. I can't say too much about what's under the hood, other than Win2k3 and asp.net.

Php has some really handy features that asp.net doesn't, and urges people not to try to emulate a few of the goodies. Asp.net has some very compelling tools available to the developer that asp didn't; I've done very well writing muulti threaded web applications, and using cross session data storage and caching. Thus we reconfirm the enterprise bit...

One mistake you want to avoid is assuming php = MySql and asp = Microsoft's SQL Server. Asp.net can use Oracle, MySql, IBM DB2, Clipper, Postgres, or even raw xml. I would assume php can do more or less the same, but I haven't got that deep into it.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

One mistake you want to avoid is assuming php = MySql and asp = Microsoft's SQL Server. Asp.net can use Oracle, MySql, IBM DB2, Clipper, Postgres, or even raw xml. I would assume php can do more or less the same, but I haven't got that deep into it.

Yes, PHP can handle as well these databases, and much more.

The PHP interpreter, can be expanded with libraries and modules, which means that you can add support to your PHP installation for almost any database system!

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The main difference, except from what vangogh already said about open-source, is that while PHP is C/C++ based, ASP and ASP.NET are MS BASIC based. You know the differences in the structure of the two languages, and you have an opinion about which is better. The same, aplies when comparing PHP with ASP.

Ok, that makes some sense about PHP.


But that leads to a couple of more questions.

ASP.Net has a visual developer call VWD or Visual Web Developer 2008. This enables an ASP.Net writer to convert almost 70% of the language to a "drag-and-drop" type of deal. You can edit anything that you drag and drop though, your aren't "locked in".

Also if you were to create a new website all you do is click new website and it creates the basic pages for you, a starting page (example.aspx), a separate coding file for any type of javascript like stuff (an example.aspx.cs or .vb depending on you language you chose), and a web.config file for your xml stuff.

Also Microsoft has quite an extended database for learning ASP.Net with their video turtorials and MSDN libraries. (All this is also free)

Does PHP have anything similar to this? (I have absolutly no idea of anythign about PHP besides that it is C++ based).

Also another question. What type of languages does PHP support, like does it have any add in sub languages like ASP.Net has with its C# and VB?

And what is considered "open source"? I have done linux (SuSE to be exact) and I though open source was something that mean you can get it for free and basically change whatever you wanted and do what ever you wanted without any legal issues. But what is considered "open source" with a programming language, isn't all languages that are free, open source? Because you can right ASP.Net in note pad if you want .

You can look at www.php.net, for a huge database with PHP's functions, with explanations, examples, etc. There are also introductory pages, like lessons. On the web, you can also find numerous 3rd party websites, oriented in teaching you the PHP language. To sum up... you can find many more resources like sites, guides, scripts, tutorials and so on for PHP rather that ANY other scripting language. Don't worry.



Open-source means that you have the right to alter the source code, customize the software (in this case, the PHP language) as much as you want, and re-distribute it. In paid software you can never do that; it's licensed, and completely illegal to de-compile it (and of course, the company making it, will never release the source code).

As with Linux and Windows. With Linux, you can make a brand-new OS based on its' core, and it will be 100% legal. When talking about Windows, you can't even make a small alteration to a minor part of the OS (like the... calculator) without breaking Microsofts' license.

What type of languages does PHP support

PHP.

ASP.net have a CLR, that is a bit like a virtual machine, and that can understand different coding languages.
PHP haven't that. You code in PHP, and it's all.

About the interface, there is none like in web developper.
I believe that ASP.net is a template based framework, and that you define what is called master pages.
I understand why you would use a special editor to create the base structure in that case.
Php doesn't have this. Or to be exact, it's not tied to something like this.
PHP is more "raw" in this aspect. There are several frameworks that implements templating and that need a setup part first, but this is not needed if you don't want too.

What I usually do is that I create my base classes in PHP, instantiate them when needed in the form of singleton design pattern ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton_pattern ) on the global level, and calls them upon my needs.
I used to use templating via smarty, but today, I have dumped it in favor of the couple XML+XSL with a XSLT transformation on the server for browser that don't support it locally.