ASP Vs. PHP

[bluevision]

Why do so many American programmers and webmasters prefer to deal with open source programs such as PHP and Linux servers rather than ASP and Windows based servers?

[Babaganoosh]

Windows servers and ASP suck. Plain and simple. Development and deployment costs are higher, maintenance is considerably more involved and Windows is generally an inferior hosting platform. I am an MCSE (expired) and Linux server admin. I know from experience that Windows sucks for every situation except maybe an enterprise LAN server.

[Babaganoosh]

It's not just the US either. The rest of the world avoids Windows too. I personally don't know any webmasters anywhere in the world that use Windows.

[adult-help]

Also please note that PHP scrips can be used on both linux and windows servers and the ASP scripts only on windows. And there's much more PHP scripts available.

[webboy21]

I'm not biased....I've just never seen the point in learning ASP too when I already know PHP and the majority of webhosting providers support it

[EMBC]

I've always found Linux to be a more stable platform, as well as giving more option to how you want to run things.

As far as PHP/ASP, someone already mentioned that PHP is cross-platform supported which makes it a better option if you ever want to move from MS <> Linux.

Also, PHP has a number of great CMS options such as drupal.org

[d-null]

I use both and prefer linux, but I have both windows and linux hosting and probably will keep using both for years.

[pornask]

There's a reason why all websites where stability and security matter, such as banks, have their sites programmed in ASP. It's much superior platform, more stable and secure on all levels. It has a support of a recognized company people trust. PHP is for wannabies, that’s why I use it. Clearly I haven’t grown to be good enough for ASP yet.

[bluevision]

The reason I asked about this is because we are getting alot of requests for price quotes from people specifically asking for PHP/Linux based sites. Until recently we dealt with only ASP/Windows sites for the same reason that Pornask answered above. However, not to loose those customers, I would like to work in cooperation with programmers or companies that do deal with PHP/Linux. If interested please contact me. Thanks in advance!

[xkipx]

php is better by far. more widely used. ASP and windows are crap for servers.

[Defiance Inc]

Because most CEO's are cheap bastards! hehe
There are a lot of small to mid size corporations that have to
run on a shoestring budget. MS licensing can get to be crazy so
why not free. Also UNIX was taught and created in many Colleges and Universities
long before Windows. So its kind of a natural progression into the business world.
I know both and each have their +-. But I really enjoy ASP.NET. Debugging in visual
studio is a HUGE time saver!

[brandonstills]

Only large commercial companies use ASP.NET (overgeneralization but mostly true). PHP is free. It's also not proprietary and likely to become obsolete and unsupported a few years later. Windows servers require licensing, linux & clones are free.

[PXN]

PHP by a far margin

[CyR]

I code a majority of my stuff in vi, so to a GUI for debugging.... that only shows that you need to rely on a program to do your work for you. If you are writing the code, you should be able to debug it.

As for banks and so on, I don't know what it's like in the states, but most banks that I've been to here they click submit on the page they are working on... then wait... and wait.... and start talking to you on how your day might have been. ASP has it's places, sure, not saying PHP would be any faster in that case, but banks are probably not the best example of the power of a language if you are talking from a teller's console.

Anyhoo... regardless of the language, both do the same, comes down to personal preference. Just reminds me when code red hit and talking to a guy in Melbourne stressing because a majority of their machines got infected. Yay windows machines.

[Jovilicious]

Documentation

... and its so much eazier to find doc for php ...

[Defiance Inc]

"that only shows that you need to rely on a program to do your work for you. If you are writing the code, you should be able to debug it."

I don't recall anyone saying they NEED the program. It just makes it easier.
I debugged a program that utilized a 3rd party api. The problem was a naming conflict. I was able to step into the call stack and find it within minutes. Without it it would have taken much longer. And customers often request 3rd party apps, plugins etc. to work with their product. So in that case, no I didn't write it, but yes I can still debug it.

[webcams_scotchie]

[troubled_soul]

imo, what matters most is the developer himself.
if you write the code correctly it will work well on any platform/development language.
if your style is crappy you get crappy results, doesn't matter if its php or asp.
the reason linux and php are popular is cos they are free!
if windows was free, would things be the same?

[Arnjen]

Well pro for php=easy to learn much documentation
con for php=MUCH more exploits than asp that i know also less secure against bruteforcing
I dont know much about asp so dunno guess its safer allthough the server itself is less secure so all in all it equals about safety

[ModelShrines]

Banks don't use Microsoft products because of security, it's because of support. When the bank has an issue, they have a large company to contact that stands behind and supports their products. They've dealt with Microsoft in the past and know what to expect from them in the future. Microsoft is the central authority figure for all of their products, who is for Linux? I can't see a major bank dealing with Red Hat. It's the same reason why large companies purchase their products from IBM, Oracle, Dell and SAP. They all provide the support. Banks are moving away from OS/2 ATM's to Windows ATM's, from one large company(IBM) to another(Microsoft), both companies larger than many banks.

The only way a large corporation will buy an open source product is when it's supported by another large company such as IBM or Sun, they won't risk it with Red Hat. It's not about security or stability, it's all about support.

[thelanman]

All the reasons I like PHP have pretty much been stated. I love linux, but as far as supporting systems, I have to encounter windows machines daily. You set up a linux machine right for a company and they may call you to dust it out every once in a while.

[dtmoney]

Well I can't speak for ASP, since I've never coded in it. So PHP gets the win, LOL.

I've used php for about a year, and it's a decent scripting language for web development. It's extremely lightweight, supports mysql, Object Oriented Programming, and the perfect soul mate to the Apache web server.

Now what if the argument is switched to: ASP.NET or PHP.

Then ASP.NET blows PHP millions of light years into the Andromeda galaxy from a development standpoint

I've only used ASP.NET for five months and I can tell you right now it's extremely amazing. For starters ASP.NET is a huge framework which is a subframework of .NET. PHP is just a mere language. In ASP.NET a ton of shit is already done for you. In PHP you either have to recode everything from scratch or seek open source algorithms done by other people. I'm personally not into doing that mainly due to the coding style of the programmer. There are some guys who can make efficient algorithms and separate code which needs to be separated from other code, and this is great. However, most open source php code I've seen is horribly structured, and you often see something like this:


$x = 0; //declare variable
$sum = 0; //declare sum variable

//get sum value 200 times because it will be needed for task
for(int i = 0; i < 200; i++)
$sum = SumMyValues();

.
.
.
.

function SumMyValues()
{
$currentsum = 0; //initialize sum

for(int j = 0; j < 100000; j++)
$currentsum +=j;

return $currentsum

}


Fuck that!!!

LOL.

With ASP.NET, at least the algorithms are created in an efficient manner. Microsoft has a name to live up to. I'm sure they don't want to slander their name. Not only that but C# and VB support namespaces which is a really great tool for separating layers in an n-tier application(though php can do this with includes ).


The only downfall, like people have said, is that ASP and ASP.NET only run on windows servers. I have seen numerous websites which offer windows hosting for adult web apps.

[D Ghost]

fuck ASP

[xenilk]

ASP sucks period, ASP.net is "Ok" in my book and PHP is great since it's cheap and works just great. I'd say the language doesn't really matter it's the people using it.

I code mostly in PHP but it reminds me of VB6 sometimes since people can make the worst mistakes and ignore the warning and the program will still work well but will be more exposed to security issues.

[jaromir]

Why do so many American programmers and webmasters prefer to deal with open source programs such as PHP and Linux servers rather than ASP and Windows based servers?

Because Linux is more stable and free!

If some server not run in sunday it's probably the Windows server, which waiting to the restart of his administrator in monday (true story).

PHP and Linux is like Rolls-Royce in quality. More, because its open source you have all documents and source code to its, how you may modify it and create your own version! And what is the best is, that its FREE forever and in 1000 copies !!!

Do you like FREE Rolls-Royce (PHP, Linux), or do you will pay for underway which will crash occasionally and will smell not to good (Windows)?

I prefer Linux on server and Windows on my home station (Windows is standard, too many important programs running only on Windows, if not, i will use Linux on home station too, because the stability and security are the best...).

[jaromir]

And www.php.net simply rocks.

All documentation and examples on one place.

I'm occasionall programer of my own web aplications, and where i get ALL infos? On one place at www.php.net.

PHP rocks as AC/DC band .

[jaromir]

Also please note that PHP scrips can be used on both linux and windows servers and the ASP scripts only on windows. And there's much more PHP scripts available.

Yes PHP is portable to almost all operation systems, it's better than C. And little worster, than Java.

Why use some crapy ASP, on bad IIS server.

On thy my local Windows XP desktop and notebook i installed the Apache server (which is the best one in stability, documentation, configuration...) with PHP, which helping me with repetitive tasks via my own set of programs.

PHP, Perl, MySQL, Apache, all Linuxs - It's free, you may port program to other operations systems, stable, well documented...

ASP, Windows - for charge , ABSOLUTELY not stable, not portable to other OS, not documentm, not opened, is bad, really bad

I like free, stable and opened solutions.

Same solution is use .ODT or .DOC. I'm using OpenOffice.org with ISO standarded .ODT file format and NOT using Microsoft Word with .DOC! .ODT is documented, so i will open it after 50 years in some program, and if not, i may pay someone to program it from specification...

Do you like be in jail which shaking and falling, or in paradise where ise everything free?

[AdultXFun]

PHP by a long way.

I've written all my libraries, classes, and reusable functions myself from scratch, why? As I have an inherent mistrust of other people's code and I want to know my app inside out and that it's secure. Using PHP gives me that piece of mind, ASP.NET does not as I can't *see* everything going on in the system.

@dtmoney
Pointless listing bad code as an example of why not to go with PHP, as you can have bad code in any language. The same could be said of PERL, Ruby, and Python by that rationale. I'm also sure that some ASP code out there truly sucks. ;)

[dtmoney]

PHP by a long way.

I've written all my libraries, classes, and reusable functions myself from scratch, why? As I have an inherent mistrust of other people's code and I want to know my app inside out and that it's secure. Using PHP gives me that piece of mind, ASP.NET does not as I can't *see* everything going on in the system.

@dtmoney
Pointless listing bad code as an example of why not to go with PHP, as you can have bad code in any language. The same could be said of PERL, Ruby, and Python by that rationale. I'm also sure that some ASP code out there truly sucks. ;)

Yeah but you are reinventing the wheel on stuff which is already done in another language. One of the most important things I learned about software engineering is to avoid reinventing the wheel by using efficient algorithms which are already done. ASP.NET accomplishes this. Congrats on being able to create all of you libraries from scratch.

The point of the bad code was to demonstrate that there are many programmers who code in php with very little background in computer science, and therefore, release open source code to the community to avoid reinventing the wheel. I know they have good intentions, but slow websites will make visitors leave the website all together. I know a guy who has his own web business, and he does all of his websites in PHP with a back end MYSQL database. I swear to you, this guy does all of his validation with javascript!


This same guy hates programming and stated that he just copies and pastes what he sees over the internet.


I'm not saying there aren't bad coders in ASP.NET, but there is lot more in PHP for the simple fact that: A) It has larger user base B) More open source code for things which are already done efficiently in ASP.NET by the .NET framework. All of the open source code gives way too many options, and if not chosen correctly, can lead to slow programs

To the guy who said PHP is better than C:

From a web applications point of view, then yes, it is much better than C. For all other applications, LOL, get real.

ASP.NET is also free. Just download Visual Web Developer and SQL Server express from Microsoft website.

I thought PHP was great when I used it. Heck It's still a great language for server side programming. Compared to ASP.NET, however, it just can't compete.

To each his own