ASP .Net vs. PHP

[Submerge]

I remember years ago when the community use to fight about ASP vs. PHP. And over the years, I have taken the time to learn both languages. Not professionally, but I have gone farther than just dabble in them. And I would like your guys input on which you think is better.

Now, with ASP .Net, I think it is a very powerful language. Now that you can easily integrate VB Script with ASP, it has become a lot more easier to program with and simpler to learn the basics. If you know Visual Basic, you are half way onto knowing ASP .Net (If you go the VB Script route).

However, my main concern about it is that it is a very difficult language to have everything cooperate with you. I try to take other peoples code and I can't get it to run half the time, it is very touchy. Especially with master pages and themes, it seems like Microsoft is trying to reinvent the wheel.

What are your opinions on ASP .Net?

[Arthur07]

ASP.NET is great for intranet's and windows integrated websites. It's fairly simple to learn but some of the code can be very, very specific. A good site for ASP.NET ideas is www.windowsforms.net.

I always have real problems moving my local ASP.NET websites (when using a MS SQL db) to my website. Eventually I just gave up.

I think asp is just about dead now - well in my opinion.

PHP is my favourite language, i just find it the easiest to use. It dosen't integrate well with windows though.

[Whitey]

Note to all: I hate Microsoft, so take what I say with a grain of salt :P


I'd always choose PHP over ASP with web based apps, unless I was forced to use MSSQL - the PHP library for that has never been perfect.

The only Microsoft language I really like is BASIC, which is what Visual Basic stems from.


VB is a very simple "language" - not really a language as it's just BASIC with a GUI and a few new commands - and I don't see ASP integration of it as a major thing. VBScript is probably one of the worst scripting languages I've worked with. What's wrong with JavaScript and PHP? At least JS is a lot more supported than VBScript...


As Arthur07 said, ASP.NET integrates well with Windows. PHP however, doesn't. It's the same topsy-turvy with Linux (generally speaking, anyway).

Here's one of my lines of thought:

PHP will run a lot better on a *NIX based system. ASP will barely (if at all) run on there.

The vast majority of web servers in the world are running a *NIX based system.

PHP is a backend language and therefore integrates with the server, not the client.

PHP is better.



:)



- Whitey

[Submerge]

I feel the same as you guys. I never had much need to learn PHP until I thought about the business aspects. from my experience, businesses usually use Microsoft product, such as ASP .Net and its framework so I thought it would be worth learning ASP if I needed to do coding in it for a business.

[BottomUpSites]

Submerge, you are right. I have not found many business who use PHP, at least in my experiences. I work for a company that uses ASP.Net, and I really like it. I am a very good programmer though (not to blow my own horn), and it is very easy to reuse my code.

You fall into problems when you try to use bad programmer's code, like some of the people I work with. They are decent .Net programmers, but have no skills at all in HTML. They are still using tables in all their code (even building tables inside an email). It took me a couple days to get their code to run on my machine because it was just crap.

But take my deal site. I can easily move it from one server to another, one computer to another and it runs without a hitch. ASP is not as easy as people have pointed out because it may be easy to program ASP, but to do it so that it is reusable is not so easy a task.

[shrkscn]

ASP.net is the best that a developer can get.. the only problem is most of the popular tools like wordpress as well as many freeware are available on PHP.

If I were to host ASP.net blog I will not get the kind of plugins like wordpress. I believe if I am to code a website for a company then I should go for ASP.net, but I want to create a website managed by me than I will go for PHP.

[AnthonyLipari]

I think PHP is easier because it has simpler code, but it just has more of it. ASP.NET is harder, but has less code. So it's either easier + more, or harder + less. Personally I went for easier + more, because half of the functions in PHP I'll never ever use anyway!