asp, php or java, .net or what?

[windandwaves]

Hi Gurus

I know this is an html group, but I am sure many of you do web development
work that goes beyond html.

I was wondering what you think works best.
- PHP
- Java something
- .net
- Mysql vs SQL vs Postgres (or whatever these databases are called)
- etc...

I only do php and mysql, but recently someone told me that these are
hopelessly out of date compared to, for example, dot.net.

Personally, I believe that it does not matter, that we will never use all
the potential anyway and that it is more important to know something well
and your actual ideas, the the languages are much of a muchness...

What do you think?

- Nicolaas

 

[Hywel Jenkins]

Hi Gurus

I know this is an html group, but I am sure many of you do web development
work that goes beyond html.

I was wondering what you think works best.
- PHP
- Java something
- .net
- Mysql vs SQL vs Postgres (or whatever these databases are called)
- etc...

I only do php and mysql, but recently someone told me that these are
hopelessly out of date compared to, for example, dot.net.

Personally, I believe that it does not matter, that we will never use all
the potential anyway and that it is more important to know something well
and your actual ideas, the the languages are much of a muchness...

What do you think?

What are your career ambitions? Do you want to be doing trivial little
web sites for the rest of your life, or do you want to give enterprise-
level application development a shot? If it's the latter, you'll need
more than PHP and MySQL. A recent survey indicates that the take-up of
PHP is declining as businesses head for Java and/or .Net applications.

 

[Safalra]

I know this is an html group, but I am sure many of you do web development
work that goes beyond html.

I was wondering what you think works best.
- PHP
- Java something
- .net
- Mysql vs SQL vs Postgres (or whatever these databases are called)
- etc...

I only do php and mysql, but recently someone told me that these are
hopelessly out of date compared to, for example, dot.net.

..NET will only run (reliably) on Windows-based servers (there are some
Linux clones of .NET, but from what my .NET-minded friends tell me they
rather unreliable). Java (-server pages) has greater support for other
platforms, and Java is a fairly nice language. PHP is a mess of a
language, but it seems to be the one most people (including me) use. It
depends on who you're doing web development for, and whether they
insist on a certain host. If they do, PHP with MySQL is probably the
best combination, as most hosts offer a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL,
PHP) solution.

 

[SpaceGirl]

.NET will only run (reliably) on Windows-based servers (there are some
Linux clones of .NET, but from what my .NET-minded friends tell me they
rather unreliable). Java (-server pages) has greater support for other
platforms, and Java is a fairly nice language. PHP is a mess of a
language, but it seems to be the one most people (including me) use. It
depends on who you're doing web development for, and whether they
insist on a certain host. If they do, PHP with MySQL is probably the
best combination, as most hosts offer a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL,
PHP) solution.

..NET runs on the same platforms as Java and PHP. There is an OpenSource
edition of the .NET CLI. The MONO .NET clone is very reliable if you are
doing straight-forwards things. Many hosts offer the option of LAMP+IIS
(.NET 1.1 + ASP3) if they're any good. If you're going to be doing media
serving, Windows servers generally offer the quickest way to develop a
solution and are less complex to manage and maintain. But if it's pure
flexibility you want, I choose JSP (Java) as my second platform.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
# this post (c) Miranda Thomas 2005
# explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers
# to duplicate this post.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I was wondering what you think works best.

Java. Far more capable than any of those. Not that I'd recommend it, as
it's expensive overkill for everything except the larger sites.

I only do php and mysql, but recently someone told me that these are
hopelessly out of date compared to, for example, dot.net.

Rubbish. CGI is outdated, but PHP is still in with a chance. It's only
really suitable for small systems, but it's perfectly workable within
that field.

 

[windandwaves]

What are your career ambitions? Do you want to be doing trivial
little web sites for the rest of your life, or do you want to give
enterprise- level application development a shot?

I am focussing on small and medium sized businesses as the average business
size in New Zealand is eight people.

If it's the
latter, you'll need more than PHP and MySQL. A recent survey
indicates that the take-up of PHP is declining as businesses head for
Java and/or .Net applications.

Hnmmm, yes, that is a shame, as I do like the concept of open source.

 

[windandwaves]

.NET will only run (reliably) on Windows-based servers (there are some
Linux clones of .NET, but from what my .NET-minded friends tell me
they rather unreliable). Java (-server pages) has greater support for
other platforms, and Java is a fairly nice language.
PHP is a mess of
a language, but it seems to be the one most people (including me)

Why is it such a mess? As this is all I know I dont really see the mess.

 

[windandwaves]

If
you're going to be doing media serving, Windows servers generally

what do mean with media serving?

offer the quickest way to develop a solution and are less complex to
manage and maintain. But if it's pure flexibility you want, I choose
JSP (Java) as my second platform.

Would it take a long time to learn JSP?

 

[Chris Hope]

I am focussing on small and medium sized businesses as the average
business size in New Zealand is eight people.


Hnmmm, yes, that is a shame, as I do like the concept of open source.

Ah so you're from NZ. You're probably best to concentrate on .net or
java then if you're looking for employment as there isn't a lot of call
for PHP programmers, although personally I seem to be swamped with work
at the moment (I only do PHP now). A look at sites like Netcheck will
give you a good indication of the demand for various programming
languages in NZ.

 

[Thomas Jespersen]

What do you think?

PHP is still useful for small projects, I like java because I can easily
develop for it on my linux platform. As for .net I think it is good if you
come from a Windows background as Microsoft are betting big on it and they
have made some very nice development tools for it.

If your main platform is linux/Unix I recommend you use PHP or Java as
they are imho better integrated with the platform.

So, to sum up, they all have their uses, but if you are a professional
programmer I recommend you look at either java or .net based on your
platform experiences as they seem to be what the industry is asking for
(at least here in Denmark).

 

[windandwaves]

Chris Hope wrote:
............

Ah so you're from NZ. You're probably best to concentrate on .net or
java then if you're looking for employment as there isn't a lot of
call for PHP programmers, although personally I seem to be swamped
with work at the moment (I only do PHP now). A look at sites like
Netcheck will give you a good indication of the demand for various
programming languages in NZ.

I have my own business and I like to develop my own projects so it is not
really an employment issue (I hope - I think!) But I dont want to waste my
time plugging away in some sort of nineties assembler language while the
rest of the world develops at twice the speed, using .net or what have you.
How come a MS product is doing so well? I thought that was against the
rules.

 

[Chris Hope]

I have my own business and I like to develop my own projects so it is
not
really an employment issue (I hope - I think!) But I dont want to
waste my time plugging away in some sort of nineties assembler
language while the rest of the world develops at twice the speed,
using .net or what have you.
How come a MS product is doing so well? I thought that was against
the rules.

By your own business do you mean it's just you, and you contract (which
is what I do), or do you employ other people etc?

It's always good to know of other PHP/web programmers in NZ as I'm in
the position of having to turn away any new customers at the moment.

There's someone who has approached me recently to get a CMS done but I
don't think I'll have the time to work with him and they want it done
in PHP. If you email me we can discuss this further if you're
interested. Just change blackhole to chris in my email address.

 

[Toby Inkster]

I only do php and mysql, but recently someone told me that these are
hopelessly out of date compared to, for example, dot.net.

Don't listen to them. They've been sucked in by the Microsoft marketing
machine.

Look towards PHP 5 -- it expands the object-oriented facilities in PHP.
Many PHP developers have recently focused on making PHP more suitable for
large-scale projects (possibly because the original developer of PHP has
been hired by Yahoo, and Yahoo are moving a lot of their development over
from an in-house language to PHP) and PHP 5 is the result.

Also, do have a play with PostgreSQL. If you're used to MySQL then you
shouldn't have much of a leap, as they both use the SQL standard as a
query language. PostgreSQL supports far more complicated queries than
MySQL, and much bigger databases (although MySQL is catching up in both
those areas).

 

[Chris Hope]

Don't listen to them. They've been sucked in by the Microsoft
marketing machine.

Look towards PHP 5 -- it expands the object-oriented facilities in
PHP. Many PHP developers have recently focused on making PHP more
suitable for large-scale projects (possibly because the original
developer of PHP has been hired by Yahoo, and Yahoo are moving a lot
of their development over from an in-house language to PHP) and PHP 5
is the result.

Also, do have a play with PostgreSQL. If you're used to MySQL then you
shouldn't have much of a leap, as they both use the SQL standard as a
query language. PostgreSQL supports far more complicated queries than
MySQL, and much bigger databases (although MySQL is catching up in
both those areas).

I'm interested to see what's going to happen here. I started using MySQL
over Postgres simply because it had both Windows and *nix support (and
at the time I and my company were Windows users). I've stuck with MySQL
since then as it's what I know but Postgres has always had more to it
(views, stored procedures, referential integrity etc) but MySQL is
finally getting to a similar point. The v5 release should be quite
interesting.

 

[Safalra]

[snip]
PHP is a mess of
a language, but it seems to be the one most people (including me) use.

Why is it such a mess? As this is all I know I dont really see the mess.

See section 5 of this article from the UKUUG Linux Developers'
Conference a few years ago:

http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/index.html

 

[windandwaves]

Don't listen to them. They've been sucked in by the Microsoft
marketing machine.

Look towards PHP 5 -- it expands the object-oriented facilities in
PHP. Many PHP developers have recently focused on making PHP more
suitable for large-scale projects (possibly because the original
developer of PHP has been hired by Yahoo, and Yahoo are moving a lot
of their development over from an in-house language to PHP) and PHP 5
is the result.

Also, do have a play with PostgreSQL. If you're used to MySQL then you
shouldn't have much of a leap, as they both use the SQL standard as a
query language. PostgreSQL supports far more complicated queries than
MySQL, and much bigger databases (although MySQL is catching up in
both those areas).

Hi Toby

Thank you for your indepth reply. Cool, good news from you.

I mean, I only use about 3% of PHP and MySql to do 90% of my work so I think
you only really see the difference every now and then when you want to do
something fancy.

I am really interested to start programming more Object Oriented (I find it
hard to understand), but I think I do this naturally a little, as I am
always focussing on building a generic library of functions with a small
execution list for my actual application.

Thanks again for your positive words ;-)

- Nicolaas

 

[kchayka]

[snip]
PHP is a mess of a language

Why is it such a mess?

http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/index.html

"...it is not clear how well PHP scales for use in larger commercial
websites."

If you're not going after the larger commercial client and you don't
personally have a problem with the language peculiarities, who cares if
it's a "mess" or not?

It's free and readily available on most servers with no special set up.
Those are big selling points for a lot of people.

 

[Safalra]

Safalra wrote:
[snip]
PHP is a mess of a language

Why is it such a mess?

http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/index.html

"...it is not clear how well PHP scales for use in larger commercial
websites."

If you're not going after the larger commercial client and you don't
personally have a problem with the language peculiarities, who cares if
it's a "mess" or not?
It's free and readily available on most servers with no special set up.
Those are big selling points for a lot of people.

As I said elsewhere, it depends on who you're developing for, and I'd
agree that there are circumstances where it's the best solution - I use
it myself on some pages on my site.

 

[Joel Shepherd]

CGI is outdated, but PHP is still in with a chance.

What language is CGI again?

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Kim_Andr=E9_Aker=F8?=]

What language is CGI again?

CGI = Common Gateway Interface

The computer language used is more or less any computer language you
can execute files or scripts with. The most common language used is
probably Perl, but per definition, this is really up to the developer
of the CGI solution.