PHP or ASP?

Oriel

Hi folks, I'm looking for an unbiased opinion here.
I'm going to have to implement a project that I'm working on at the moment, which will basically involve accessing/changing etc an online database from a website which we will create.

At the moment, the database is being created in MS Access. I'm just wondering whether to use PHP or ASP for the implementation of the project.

Could anybody give me reasons why/why not to choose either of the above?
I have worked with either before, so maybe which is easiler to pick up etc? Or any other suggestions.

Cheers,
Sinecure.

Peace

Well i've done some asp programming, nothing in industry i just learned a while back for ****s and giggles. It was good.

I think the easiest answer is which are you most comfortable with yourself. If you know VB then you know ASP tbh.

But i've never touched PHP myself.

Talliesin

Originally posted by Peace
If you know VB then you know ASP tbh.

Or if you know Javascript (which ASP also supports out-of-the-box as the scripting engine).

Beyond that, I'd recommend you take a quick look at both and go with whatever you feel you are going to be more comfortable with from first impressions. Not a very technical answer, but the technical answer means examining a lot of minutiae that probably aren't going to affect your first few projects, and either will "grow with you" for some time to come.

mneylon

The only thing I would mention is portability.
PHP runs on most OS
ASP only runs on Windows

Peace

But its not a problem if you know you are running a windows server.

DeadBankClerk

But is a problem if your next project is on a linux server.

mneylon

So if you want to be able to work on either .. ..

Talliesin

Originally posted by blacknight
ASP only runs on Windows

Not strictly true: <http://wwws.sun.com/software/chilisoft/>.
That said, while it's not impossible to use ASP with other systems PHP is more portable.

mneylon

Chillisoft ASP is not full ASP, so you would be a lot better off running something under PHP or Perl

Greggy

ASP = Scripting Language
PHP = Programming Language

I have used both in commercial projects and to be honest I would go with PHP all the way.

ASP Syntax = VB
PHP Syntax = C/Java/Perl Combination

From the off PHP & ASP are very similar, with things like string functions etc

Here is a microsoft comparison, a little biased but some good points (& few bad ones)
Microsoft Comparison - ASP/PHP

Here are some other useful links:
http://www.geocities.com/ewmpsi/aspvsphp.html
http://www.google.ie/search?q=asp+vs+php&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N

Hope that helps,
Greg

Typedef

Asp in the main implies using an IIS Server.

Doing that is always a bad idea.

For example I recently registered a new box with a domain name.

One of the first things that happend during domain name propigation was a machine/person somewhere who was looking out for newly registered domain names.... and attempted to run a Windows-IIS server exploit, against my Linux-Apache (LAMP) server.

That in itself speaks volumes.


Personally I'm quite fond of php, it's pretty powerful, with all the bells and whistles that lazy programmers generally love, probably ASP is exactly the same way.

Go, write your entire site from a CGI proggie, that you've written in GAS syntax assembler.

projectmayhem

if your project is only in access then ASP is the way to go but for implementing bigger, better, more efficiant projects in the future then PHP is worth the time and effort

Talliesin

Originally posted by Greggy
ASP Syntax = VB

I wasn't playing a practical joke on Sinecure when I stated that ASP doesn't have to be done with VB earlier, it really is true you know.:rolleyes:

Karoma

Originally posted by Talliesin
Or if you know Javascript (which ASP also supports out-of-the-box as the scripting engine).

JScript, not JavaScript

if you're sticking with .mdb i'd recommend sticking with ASP-it makes life easier (Better documentation/documented examples, etc.).
PHP & MySQL wouldn't be too much of a stretch and would be more portable/robust/secure. The cost in time&money to run ASP on anything other than IIS is too high.

joemomma

One important point in PHP's favour is that you can do a lot of stuff with a standard installation that would require add-on components with ASP, many of which carry a fee. PHP also has a lot of add-on modules, but generally these are free and of good quality.

Whether this is an issue for you depends on the scale of your project.

bonkey

And if you're going down the Windows path anyway, consider ASP.Net over ASP....

but that's probably just confusing things

jc

Talliesin

Originally posted by Karoma
JScript, not JavaScript

Well, ECMAScript then (as if I care whose trademark I'm infringing)

Karoma

i was just hilighting that there's (minor) diffierences between (old) javascript and ECMA(-262) (JScript) - nothing personal.