PHP and ASP why the difference?

T

Travis Newbury

I am working with PHP and MySQL for a few pet projects just because I
get an easy/powerful server language and pretty powerful database for
free. But it got my curiosity up and I decided to search the main job
boards to see what the demand for PHP developers is.

I was a little surprised to find that there was better than 10 to 1
difference in PHP position vs ASP/ASP.net positions. Also the salary
for PHP positions was about (generally) 25% less than ASP positions.
Please note I am NOT asking or implying that one is better than the
other!! I am just wondering why you think there is such a difference in
the (US) job market?

ps. If your reply is some kind of flame of one or the other languages
save us all some time and don't bother replying.
 
D

Dylan Parry

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:
I am just wondering why you think there is such a difference in the
(US) job market?

I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"
 
T

Tina - AxisHOST, Inc.

Dylan Parry said:
Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:

I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"


Dylan Parry said:
Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:

I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"

Pretty much what I was going to say. Also, Microsoft spends a gazillion
dollars each year on marketing.

--Tina
 
G

Greg N.

Dylan said:
I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"

I'd guess the answer is the other way round, sortof.

PHP is so vastly popular that PHP programmers are easy to find. ASP has
not been abywhere near as successful, hence, you have to look harder
(and pay better) to get a good ASP programmer.
 
A

Andy Dingley

I was a little surprised to find that there was better than 10 to 1
difference in PHP position vs ASP/ASP.net positions.

Here in the UK there's a huge segregation in the markets for the two
skills.

ASP .NET - fair bit of demand.

ASP (old style) - pretty much dead now.

PHP - No demand at all, if you look at a site like JobServe (the main
one)

As far as I can tell, there's more demand for PHP people and more PHP
being done, _but_ the large companies that recruit through agencies, and
the agencies that recruit through JobServe etc. just aren't using PHP.
The PHP work that is happening is one-man-and-dog outfits, or just a
little bigger. These mainly recruit through word of mouth.

As far as commercial work goes for bug projects, it's pretty much all
Java. Yet looking in here, c.i.w.a.h and uk.n.w.a there seems to be
almost no-one else using Java.
 
T

Travis Newbury

Dylan said:
Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:
I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"

I am leaning in the same direction. I think because PHP is homegrown
(open source) that there is less of an organized promotion of it
compared to Microsoft and ASP/.net
 
T

Travis Newbury

Greg said:
I'd guess the answer is the other way round, sortof.
PHP is so vastly popular that PHP programmers are easy to find. ASP has
not been abywhere near as successful, hence, you have to look harder
(and pay better) to get a good ASP programmer.

But how would that account for the obvious lack of positions being
offered with PHP (as compared to ASP)?
 
D

David Dorward

Travis said:
But how would that account for the obvious lack of positions being
offered with PHP (as compared to ASP)?

The people who make those types of decisions are often the type who don't
really understand either, but know that "Nobody was ever fired for choosing
Microsoft"
 
S

SpaceGirl

Dylan said:
Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:



I would have thought it was because ASP and .NET are buzz words as far
as employers are concerned, whereas PHP is something that when heard by
most employers is more likely to get a response similar to "huh?"

Not to mention PHP is pretty much only a "web" language, while ASP.Net
is part of a suite of related languages that can be used for web,
applications, hardware etc etc etc...

Also, .Net being a "fixed" standard (it's not open source, there are
only a few versions of it), you can easily expect a level of expertese
from a .net programmer verses any other open language (js, php etc).

--


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.
 
S

SpaceGirl

Andy said:
Here in the UK there's a huge segregation in the markets for the two
skills.

ASP .NET - fair bit of demand.

ASP (old style) - pretty much dead now.

PHP - No demand at all, if you look at a site like JobServe (the main
one)

As far as I can tell, there's more demand for PHP people and more PHP
being done, _but_ the large companies that recruit through agencies, and
the agencies that recruit through JobServe etc. just aren't using PHP.
The PHP work that is happening is one-man-and-dog outfits, or just a
little bigger. These mainly recruit through word of mouth.

As far as commercial work goes for bug projects, it's pretty much all
Java. Yet looking in here, c.i.w.a.h and uk.n.w.a there seems to be
almost no-one else using Java.

PHP is not standards based, and I've noticed a BIG backlash against
OpenSource in the big companies I've been dealing with recently. While
IT people dont much like MS, they seem to hate OpenSource even more. I'm
not sure why - it could be because there is so much hype around
OpenSource stuff, but when it comes down to actual production if you
have to support and document projects, or keep projects simple, .Net and
the ilk are a lot easier to manage.

?? I'm not really a programmer I suppose, although I have noticed a LOT
of C#.net and ASP.net jobs over the last year. I dont recall any for PHP.

--


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.
 
D

David Dorward

SpaceGirl said:
Not to mention PHP is pretty much only a "web" language,
http://gtk.php.net/
http://uk.php.net/features.commandline

Also, .Net being a "fixed" standard (it's not open source, there are
only a few versions of it), you can easily expect a level of expertese
from a .net programmer verses any other open language (js, php etc).

Err... frankly, that's rubbish. Being open source with an open development
process just means (in practical terms) that anyone can contribute. You
still end up with a stable API at the end of it.

(OK, an open source project can be forked - but then people need a
compelling reason to switch to the forked version - and one or the other of
the versions will usually die. Usually that one is the fork after failing
to attract more then two developers. When a fork is successful, its usually
due to something being very wrong with the original. If something is very
wrong with the original in a proprietry project, then it stays wrong ... or
dies and leaves all its users in the lurch)

How many versions of PHP are there?
How many versions of Perl are there?
How many versions of Ruby are there?
How many versions of Python are there?
(Where a "version" is a separate developement process that has
incompatibilities with others)

You mentioned JavaScript, well that has lots of different implementations
(but its a special case, since its an usually used as an add-on to web
browsers, which already had separate, and proprietary implementations, and
thus suffered through the browser wars), but now those bits of JavaScript
which are standardized are (AFAIK) pretty evenly implemented across modern
browsers. Besides - Javascript was not developed as an open source project,
nor, AFAIK, was the language design generated using an open developmenet
process.
 
A

Andy Dingley

you have to look harder
(and pay better) to get a good ASP programmer.

OTOH, finding a _good_ PHP developer, rather than a clueless code
monkey, is so difficult that many projects give up and switch platform.

Apart from maybe Perl, I've never seen such dreadful coding standards as
I have on typical PHP projects. It's no wonder that some sites have
banned its use as too insecure, when major products based on it (like
phpNuke) can turn out to be susceptible to SQL injection attacks and the
like.

This sort of thing is trivial to avoid happening. But the PHP market is
flooded by programmers who are barely worthy of the name and have only a
handful of years experience. Because of the small size and rapid speed
of modern projects, we're also seeing these people dropped into senior
design roles that they just don't have the experience for. Ten years
ago, there'd have been a senior developer on the team who already had
significant experience of a particular platform - these days it's just
monkeys led by monkeys.
 
A

Andy Dingley

Not to mention PHP is pretty much only a "web" language, while ASP.Net
is part of a suite of related languages that can be used for web,
applications, hardware etc etc etc...

Complete rubbish.
Also, .Net being a "fixed" standard

It's not even a standard (nor is PHP for that matter)

(it's not open source, there are
only a few versions of it),

How many versions of _VB_ would you like ? M$oft are _terrible_ for
dumping major incompatible platform shifts onto their developers. But as
you're tied into them, you have no choice but to follow, bleating
plaintively.
you can easily expect a level of expertese
from a .net programmer verses any other open language (js, php etc).

Even more ridiculous.
 
T

Travis Newbury

Andy said:
How many versions of _VB_ would you like ? M$oft are _terrible_ for
dumping major incompatible platform shifts onto their developers. But as
you're tied into them, you have no choice but to follow, bleating
plaintively.

Actually until .net, each version of VB (and their other primary
development language C/C++) was completely compatible with code written
in a previous version. What major incompatible platform shifts are you
speaking of?
 
J

JDS

PHP is not standards based, and I've noticed a BIG backlash against

What standards? Microsoft? Is being MS-compliant the same as
"standards-based" (to you)?

PHP complies to many standards. But what standards are you referring to?
 
T

Travis Newbury

JDS said:
What standards? Microsoft? Is being MS-compliant the same as
"standards-based" (to you)?
PHP complies to many standards. But what standards are you referring to?

ASP and PHP can both be used to produce HTML that is w3c standards
compliant, but what standards are either of you talking about?
 
L

Leif K-Brooks

JDS said:
PHP complies to many standards. But what standards are you referring to?

Well, PHP certainly doesn't comply to the standard of having a
non-bloated core namespace.
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
Well, PHP certainly doesn't comply to the standard of having a
non-bloated core namespace.

Do you have a link to those specs? ;-)
 
L

Leif K-Brooks

Mark said:
Do you have a link to those specs? ;-)

<data:text/html,%44%6F%20%6E%6F%74%20%62%6C%6F%61%74%20%74%68%69%6E%65%20%63%6F%72%65%20%6E%61%6D%65%73%70%61%63%65%2E>
 
M

Mark Parnell

Previously in alt.html said:
<data:text/html,%44%6F%20%6E%6F%74%20%62%6C%6F%61%74%20%74%68%69%6E%65%20%63%6F%72%65%20%6E%61%6D%65%73%70%61%63%65%2E>

Wow - "thine"? That's an old standard, then. Sure it hasn't been
superseded?

On a more serious note, I actually have no idea what you're talking
about, but is ASP any better? Do we even know since it's closed source?
 

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