Is PHP for ME?

[Redgie]

PHP vs. ASP

[DavidWalker]

This is an excellent question. There is still a massive amount of legacy code in the world that was written using ASP. PHP came around shortly after. If you have any need to run your code on non-Microsoft servers, then there is no choice - PHP. Yes, I know there are some third party applications that can be purchased that *should* allow your ASP applications to run on non-Microsoft servers, but who want's to go that extra step?

I personally choose to spend my time focus on actually writing code and not worrying about what web server my code will run on, so for the past several years I have chosen the Microsoft platform and architecture.

Build it, deploy it and forget about it - it continues to run. PHP on the other hand, they may have improved this over the years, but when I last wrote code with it a few years back, you had to mess with this MOD for Apache and multitudes of various other open source frameworks and API's, etc.

I would definitely not say "ASP" though. It should be totally retired with it's now approx 10 year old successor ASP.NET (either VB.NET or C#, with other languages available, but those are the two primary ones). This is mainly due to performance gains brought by code compilation over the dynamic languages like PHP and ASP and the ability to catch so many more errors in your IDE/Compiler in advance .

I say this for the same reasons, as mentioned above. I have been a student of Java for quite some time, and love it's cross platform capabilities and availability, but again, I do not want to have to worry about which web server is running - Apache, Web Objects, WebMethods, WebSphere, on and on, which IDE (Intergrated Development Environment) I'm using NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ-IDEA, on and on.

In my opinion, I believe Microsoft's application stack has the same benefits that Apple has with the Mac's. "Vendor" lock in does provide little to no worry about deploying code to production environments.

All that being said, I have kept an eye on the LAMP stack and the traction it has been gaining. It just appears that at the moment, in my opinion, Microsoft's Visual Studio is the most proficient IDE, at least for me.

Unlike other developers, I am not pro / anti any tool or language. I choose the technology, language and platform that best meets the needs of the particular application. I do still have some sites on PHP, simply because I haven't taken the time to consolidate all my applications onto Microsoft Windows server hosting accounts and back then it was much cheaper to host applications using PHP on Apache.

[Steven Osborn]

For rapid web development I would consider looking at your framework options an making your decision based on that and not language alone. I would recommend looking at:

- Zend Framework (PHP)
- Code Igniter (PHP)
- Rails (Ruby)
-Django (Python)

Every web application is built on some type of framework, many times it's some crude framework you build yourself. I have done this many of times, but if you want to learn to build maintainable applications rapidly you should really start with a framework that will help boot strap your application and get you coding using well known conventions.

[Shawn McDermott]

I think it totally depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I am not a big fan of any microsoft product, but admittedly they have developed some of the best developer tools available. The obvious caveat is that you are stuck on a microsoft platform to run that code.

If you are looking to rapidly prototype or implement something, php is probably your best bet. It is fairly easy to learn and you can write/implement your code on a variety of platforms. I think it is important to note that most website hosting companies provide php support out of the box when you get a hosting account.

There is a little steeper learning curve for the .net stuff, although some may say it is worth it in the long run. With C# or VB.net you will have quite a bit more power since you will be in a true application framework rather than an interpreted scripting environment like php.

Personally, I have concentrated my web development in the java/JEE world. That is not really part of your question so I will leave that for another discussion. :-)

One final note. There is always religious discussions about C# vs Java vs PHP vs blah blah. Don't get wrapped up in them. If you are concentrating on web application development the more important goal is to learn good css, html, javascript skills. The backend is really a moot point in my opinion. It is all easy. The real crux is to give a rich experience to the user of your application and that comes with implementing clean and slick interfaces. Study up on presentation frameworks. Check into prototype, scriptaculous, etc. There are tons of great frameworks that will enhance your ability to create that experience for the user that you are shooting for.

Good luck.