PHP vs ASP

[ironchef]

Sorry, about the post on ASP vs PHP, but I am trying to convenience a client of mine to use PHP instead of ASP. I was wondering if anyone has any strong comparsion information on the two languages. Advantages and Disadvantages. I need some good sources to persuade my client towards PHP.

Thanks a million.

Droopy....

[whackaxe]

PHP is more widespread than ASP isnt it?

[mordred]

PHP is free and platform-independent.
PHP has a very big community.
PHP has a lot of free extensions.
PHP is easy to use, the learning curve is IMHO smaller even than JavaScript.

That's all just out of my head. See also http://php.weblogs.com/php_vs_asp

[mouse]

As a a non-webdesigner who just so happens to have mooched about this forum for years and designed a few websites I must say PHP rocks, I agree with Mordred that it's easier to learn than JavaScript too.
I can't say much about ASP but php has a wicked online manual and massive support + runs on Apache which we all know is a far better bet than Microsoft's iffy thingy whatever it's called.

[whackaxe]

i thinlk that PHP's learning curve is steeper than javascript's. i learnt js first and when i learnt PHP i know that there are things i might not have understood without thinking about their equivilent in JS

[Alekz]

Hi,
Just taking the reverse point of view...

PHP is free and platform-independent.
PHP has a very big community.
PHP has a lot of free extensions.
PHP is easy to use, the learning curve is IMHO smaller even than JavaScript.


PHP Comes with no warranty or support, because it's free
ASP and ASP.NET also have a big community, noone have measured them, I think...
ASP/ASP.NET has a lot of free Extnetions - much more than PHP, because every COM component is in fact an ASP extention
In it's core ASP has much less keywords than PHP, so it's easier to learn...

Alex

[ironchef]

You seem to be a ASP fan, now if you were heading a Website Development Initiative and you were currently using ASP. How would you feel about designers coming to you with PHP development plan? How would you prefer to be approached about the issues and what type of information might help persuade you to switch to PHP.

[mordred]

Originally posted by Alekz
PHP Comes with no warranty or support, because it's free


Such is the nature of opensource projects. On the other hand, does Microsoft take warranty for potential bugs in ASP?


ASP/ASP.NET has a lot of free Extnetions - much more than PHP, because every COM component is in fact an ASP extention


You can also use COM components in PHP, if you want to. Can you use PHP extensions in ASP?


In it's core ASP has much less keywords than PHP, so it's easier to learn...


Have you counted them? ;) :D

Just a response to your post, I don't intend to start a religious war over this topic. But if I am totally wrong with one of my statements, I'll be delighted to know. Though I think it boils down essentially to individual preferences...

[whackaxe]

"religeous war" is the word mordred! i would prefer to use PHP because it was made by users for users where as ASP was made by microsoft for money, even tho like other MS dev tools it is exellent!

[firepages]

"because every COM component is in fact an ASP extention"

and indeed a PHP one (on win32) + PHP gives you access to all the .NET classes & JAVA class libraries.
......................................

anyway , the best place to start on 'why php?' is probably 'why not ASP ? ' and the answer to that is IIS

ASP (apart from chillisoft etc) requires IIS & NT to run, I dont think I need start the list of security issues that that brings to the surface immediately.

Its a plain fact that there are 3 times as many Apache/*NIX servers out there than IIS ones (see netcraft and securityspace (http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200209/index.html)) , PHP runs on nearly 9 1/2 million domains, there is probably a good reason for this & its not because its free, PERL has always been free and whilst still more common than PHP is growing at a rate of less than a fourth than PHP is.

If I were an ASP head I would be pushing '.NET' which at this time is more mouth than trousers, but of course has vast potential, but neither XML nor web-services are language specific (nor of course are they supposed to be) and PHP can not only integrate with what currently exits in .NET but can match functionality regardless.

ohhh I could go on a bit but its late and you would get bored ;)