PHP vs ASP

[Carrion]

Which do you think is the overall better web programming language, ASP or PHP?

[Bruce]

I prefer PHP.

[Epgs]

php

[Koolguy]

php

[Cheap Bastard]

err... I'm not sure

I'd go with... a.. a.. atchie

i'd go with php

[ashben]

ASP is great for sites with less than 1000 page views per day and if the developers already know VB. PHP is awesome, no doubt, for any sort/scale of project. JSP is very well suited for large scale projects mainly the one's designed for more than 1000 page views per day. I also like CFML though, its very compact, fast and easy to implement.

[Eclipse]

Make your choice based upon
1. How much help you can recive from friends and forums like this one.
2. Income. If you want a job and they prefer one, then stick to that one!

When you have made your choice, stick to it for at least a year or two. Even thought your aim is to teach yourself both you'll still need to start with one.

Wich one you prefere I'd say really doesn't matter. Every minute is worth the effort no matter what. No time is wasted so to say! Good luck.

[razor]

php

[Niaad]

PHP.

[noeska]

i would go for asp.

[BiteTheBugByte]

php4 (zend backend!), even faster, more stable and reliable than php3 :D

[bhorstkotte]

They're both very good - basically you should make the choice based on what OS platform you're using - if you're hosting on linux, use php; if you're hosting on Windows NT / 2000, use asp.

The comment about 1000 page views / day for ASP is utter nonsense. You think monster.com is serving < 1000 page views a day??! My site is on a single server, running Windows 2000 advanced server & ASP, and serves tens of thousands of pages a day, still with low CPU load. And that's with SQL Server running on the same box.

[Epgs]

yeah but php is easier and more accepted around the net

[bhorstkotte]

"More accepted around the net" - based on what? Checking AltaVista, a search for +".php3" yeilds 1,098,800 pages; search for +".php" yields 1,345,125, for a total of 2,443,925; search for +".asp" yields 3,141,980 pages. At best a tossup.

Or, go check monster.com, and search for "asp programmer" (27 results), and then "php programmer" (4) - highly unscientific I know, but it gives you an idea.

If the only web page you visit every day is slashdot, then yes, you might get the impression that php is more popular.

PHP does have some neat features though, I'll give you that (inline string substitutions, etc.)

[ashben]

Originally posted by bhorstkotte
The comment about 1000 page views / day for ASP is utter nonsense. You think monster.com is serving < 1000 page views a day??! My site is on a single server, running Windows 2000 advanced server & ASP, and serves tens of thousands of pages a day, still with low CPU load. And that's with SQL Server running on the same box.

ASP is resource intesive. Monster.com has more than 450 concurrent NT/IIS servers running around the globe. But if you talk of a web farm on one dedicated server running SQL 7 with more than 1000 visits then ASP kind of gets cranky. I've developed applications on ASP, JSP and PHP and have found that ASP comes down to its knees if the application is resource hungry and there is no provision for load sharing/balancing.

I strongly suggest you do some reading at:

http://www.jspinsider.com/articles/jspasp/jspasp1.html

http://www.serverpages.com/Java_Server_Pages/JSP_vs_ASP/

[LeX]

PHP = free (open source), kewl
ASP = Micro---- (bad), Micro---- (very bad)

So, umm..... I prefer.........

[bhorstkotte]

Wow, I'm totally won over by the power of your argument. Your use of the words "kewl" and "----" are particularly insightful :)

But seriously, if you have some data or experience to add to the discussion, I'll listen with an open mind. I've used both PHP and ASP quite successfully in the past, I don't see any reason to color one or the other as "----".

And one of the reasons I chose ASP (IIS) was - I got it free (Windows 2000 Advanced Server + SQL Server - friend at Microsoft). :) Also, there was a particular feature (GIS) that is available from several vendors under Win NT/2k that is not available at all in a viable (non-experimental) form at all under linux. Otherwise, I may well have chosen linux/php. In fact, my initial prototype was written in php. I'm not a MS or linux bigot, I try to use whatever platform/tool works best for the situation at hand.

[Edited by bhorstkotte on 03-29-2001 at 12:28 AM]

[LeX]

Microsoft IS ----!

Okay, here's another way of approaching it:
PHP = fast(er)
ASP = slow(er)

That's how it is with me. Dunno about you.

[ADD]
Besides, PHP is free, like I said. Most people don't have ASP installed, and most hosts don't support ASP either. Sure, there aren't many good hosts that supports PHP, but I assure you that you can find way more hosts that supports PHP than ASP.

You seem to like ASP a lot. So go on, use it. I was just stating my opinions, nobody said you had to go with what I think.

[Edited by LeX on 03-29-2001 at 12:45 AM]

[bhorstkotte]

>Microsoft IS ----!

Well, if you have that strong an opinion about it, nothing I say will change your mind, so I won't bother.

>Okay, here's another way of approaching it:
>PHP = fast(er)
>ASP = slow(er)

I searched around on the net, and all I could come up with in terms of benchmarks were tests of atypical scenarios (scores for QuickSort function, speed in serving static pages), thin detail so not of much use, or more qualitative than quantitative. The links posted by ashben were interesting - but the only one that compared php to asp was hardly impartial (Orion JSP vs. ASP, written by Orion - and no, I wouldn't generally bet on benchmarks put together by Microsoft either, there's just too much incentive for interested parties to set up the scenarios in such a way as to present themselves in the best light).

Free is definitely an issue - as I said, for me it wasn't an issue; if it had been, I would have been hard pressed to shell out for SQL Server, and might have gone as far as to redesign my application (throw out/alter the geographic component) if that was the case.

I'm not an MS or linux basher, I have both installed, and have used both php and asp; for me, the choice was purely a business decision.

LeX, you do have a point about web hosting prices - most web hosts will charge more for hosting an ASP site than a PHP site, since they're amortizing the software costs across their users. I'm self hosting, so that wasn't an issue in my case. As far as availability, I'm sure you can find plenty of hosts that offer both.

[ashben]

Originally posted by bhorstkotte
Free is definitely an issue - as I said, for me it wasn't an issue; if it had been, I would have been hard pressed to shell out for SQL Server, and might have gone as far as to redesign my application (throw out/alter the geographic component) if that was the case.

What I feel is, free is not the issue anymore. The issue is the open source nature! Fine, you got ASP for free but can you re-code a particular module in its core engine. Sure, that's possible in PHP.

[razor]

check this out:
http://php.weblogs.com/php_asp_7_reasons

[bhorstkotte]

ashben re: open source: if that's important to you, great. To me, it is not. I already feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things that affect my bottom line. This may be part of the reason that MS products have a large following in corporate America.

If, however, you're in a situation where you need to add some special functionality that can't be bought, then I can definitely see the advantage to open source. And I'm sure also a good learning experience, just poking through the code.