ASP OR PhP

the Guru

Im looking into Redesigning My site and doing a lot more with it
Dont Really know yet what im going to Do yet

But What do you reckon on which is better ASP por PhP

fizzy

well php gets my vote

asp is microsoft so you're really tied into just being able to use it on windows servers (you can run it on others but it can be messy)....

php is easy to learn and logical. it is made for the web and is very popular at the moment - so there's lots of useful resources and code out there to help you.

many use asp too but if you look at somewhere like forums.devshed.com and look at the number of posts in php versus asp forums, you'll see what i mean!

apart from anything else, i'm not even keen on asp syntax - i keep wanting to put in my semi colons and curly brackets and things like database connections etc are so much less hassle in php

tomED

Here we go.... back to the war!

Deciding between the two comes down to more than one thing.
For example, some things are easier to do in ASP than in PHP and vice versa.

Cost is another issue if you decide you want to develop any large application.

Preference is a big thing - i find asp easier to read because I come from a VB background, but I like the syntax of PHP.

If you want my suggestion - go with PHP.

You really should start a poll for this one - i suspect there will be a lot of people disagreeing on this!

FreeHost

Although ASP is very popular these days, PHP would get my vote for a couple of reasons;

1. PHP will run on both Win and Linux servers, ASP will not.
2. There is a hell of a lot of very good open source PHP scripts out there for your site e.g. forums, mailing lists etc.

I suppose the bottom line is whichever you are most comfortable with.

Webmonkey

My vote goes for PHP also. It has a lot of useful functions and modules that arn't seen in ASP

mneylon

Two things really...

1. It depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

2. Cost. A lot of hosts are forced to charge more for Windows hosting packages due to the licensing costs etc..

Zaltais

Im looking into Redesigning My site

You already have a site, ergo you already have web hosting.

If you have hosting, then your host will already support one of four scenarios:

1. No scripting support at all
2. ASP
3. PHP
4. Both (unlikely)

If you want to change from one of the above situations to another, it'll most likely cost you. Are you willing to pay?

What programming / scripting languages (if any) do you already know?

Just all things to consider....

dynamic.ie

ASP - Cause nobody else has pushed it yet.

Not going to knock the ol' php cause from what I hear, it is a great scripting language, I just don't use it. The arguments you have heard - some are valid but not all.

You can do pretty much everything in asp as you can in php, and you can definetly do everything in asp.net as you can in php... and more!

Cost wise... yes there is additional costs for hosting providers for licencing windows machines versus linux but if you compare hosts that provide both, a lot do them for the exact same resources allocation on either server for the same price.

Zaltais said that it is unlikely that a host will support both languages but they do.... a lot of them do.... we do.... we provide both asp and php support on windows 2000 servers.

You might want to take into account your database preference if there is a link with one of them. PHP developers usually link to MySQL databases, while ASP developers usually work with MS Access or MS SQL databases and sometimes MySQL.

Best of luck!!

the Guru

See the Thing is I have a fair idea about ASP but dont have a clue about PhP and mySQL

But I have heard so much about Php and would like to try it but my website is a porthole to my business and i dont want to make a dogs dangles of it.

So I think I am going to stick with the ASP
As i need a forum, Polls, and Form Mails, on there.

Da Man

If you can program a real programming language you will hate PhP after about 2 seconds. ASP.NET is on a different architectural level than PhP. What is particularly nice about ASP.NET is the ease with which you can separate the HTML design from the implementation. Their Web Service support is outstanding as well, if you ever need to go down that route.

The main negative with ASP.NET is cost of hosting, but at least you get to keep most of your hair during the development of the site.

Typedef

The main negative against ASP is Windows.

Aside from that PHP is really cool, if for example you feel like, I dunno, recompiling it, or statically linking it into your webserver... or not.

How many SQL databases does ASP support, I don't know, but PHP supports (all) of them.

Plus for all you know, ASP version x, has a vulnerability for something like an unchecked integer overflow... but, since you (tm) and the community at large can't examine it's source code (as opposed to PHP where you can), you are totally at the mercy of the Microsoft patching cycle to fix that vulnerability... all which time your website is vulerable.

To hit home my point. During the last RPC exploit worm against Windows boxes... Microsoft themselves ended up hiding the Microsoft website behind Linux servers.

So if MS, products are so brilliant, why can't "Microsoft" rely on them?

That's a rhetorical question.

Typedef

Originally posted by the Guru

So I think I am going to stick with the ASP
As i need a forum, Polls, and Form Mails, on there.

You need a forum?

Boards, runs on PHP... on a FreeBSD box afaik, and besides... PHP supports SQL Server...

But, I wouldn't run Windows in a production install, considering, the interweb is a hostile place.

Webmonkey

Originally posted by Typedef
You need a forum?

Boards, runs on PHP... on a FreeBSD box afaik, and besides... PHP supports SQL Server...

But, I wouldn't run Windows in a production install, considering, the interweb is a hostile place.

I don't get that post either. PHP can do all -
forum, Polls, and Form Mails

Webmonkey

Originally posted by Webmonkey
I didnt get the post either. PHP can do all -
forum, Polls, and Form Mails

mneylon

I think the problem was that he didn't feel comfortable with PHP/MySQL, but did with ASP NOT that PHP wasn't able to support those features which of course it does.

Serbian

Originally posted by Zaltais
If you have hosting, then your host will already support one of four scenarios:

1. No scripting support at all
2. ASP
3. PHP
4. Both (unlikely)

Looking at the site, it is hosted by NetFirms. Do you have the free hosting or the plus hosting? Free hosting has no scripting support at all on NetFirms, but the Plus option has PHP support. Judging by the dirty big banner on the intro page, I'll take a wild guess and say that you are on the free hosting

Originally posted by the Guru
As i need a forum, Polls, and Form Mails, on there.

I know people didn't get this post, but it's not without it's merits. If you are looking for form mails, well the mail() function in PHP is ridiculously slow - It can take a number of seconds to send mail with it, which isn't really on. CDONTs is a hell of a lot quicker. However, if you are planning on getting an 'out-of-the-box' Forum solution, the very best ones are coded in PHP (Like our beloved boards for example). Polls, well, they are pretty much the same in both languages.

Originally posted by Da Man
If you can program a real programming language you will hate PhP after about 2 seconds.

I don't really get this. Why would you hate PHP after 2 seconds? I am a Java programmer originally, but my job has required me to expand out to the scripting languages. I have used both ASP and PHP extensively, and I PHP would be my language of choice for most things. I really like it . On another note, I have only toyed with ASP.NET but it does seem to be pretty neat from the code examples I have seen.

Originally posted by Typedef
How many SQL databases does ASP support, I don't know, but PHP supports (all) of them.

Well, ASP supports DSN's so it technically supports all of them . Using a DSNless connection, it certainly supports all the major Databases including MySQL, Access, SQL Server and Oracle.

From my own point of view, I personally would go with PHP. I find it a lot easier to work with, the online manual (found here) is absoultely great, and if you ever get stuck doing something, there are countless forums and open source scripts out there to help you along the way. http://www.devshed.com and http://forums.devshed.com would be my favourite haunts. However, if you are set on ASP and nothing can change you mind, the best sites are 4 Guys From Rolla and VB Language Reference.

Webmonkey

From my own point of view, I personally would go with PHP. I find it a lot easier to work with, the online manual (found here) is absoultely great, and if you ever get stuck doing something, there are countless forums and open source scripts out there to help you along the way. http://www.devshed.com and http://forums.devshed.com would be my favourite haunts. However, if you are set on ASP and nothing can change you mind, the best sites are 4 Guys From Rolla and VB Language Reference. [/B]

And not forgetting: http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/

for php