ASP or PHP?
Okay so I have been doing alot more web work recently and I have a decent knowellge of HTML, CSS and Javascript. But now I need to be able to attach databases, e-commerce, user specific content and so on. What is going to be the best programming language to learn - ASP or PHP?
I create my site on a mac and only use a PC for testing.
Also can anyone recommend any decent training agents in the UK?
Thanks
Jon-e-orange
P.S my work website: www.palmiero-design.co.uk
I create my site on a mac and only use a PC for testing.
Also can anyone recommend any decent training agents in the UK?
Thanks
Jon-e-orange
P.S my work website: www.palmiero-design.co.uk
Comments
I think they're both easy to learn and offer a lot of the same benefits. However, PHP is going to work on your Mac for free and it will be pretty easy to set up. You can also get the free database MySQL on your mac. PHP works really well with MySQL so you should have no problem there either.
For ASP you will need a Windows PC with IIS installed. There is a program you can get to run ASP on a Mac but you have to buy it and you don't get all the features anyway.
The biggest advantage with ASP is Microsoft's IDE - Visual InterDev. But thats expensive too. I haven't found a good IDE that I like for PHP so I just use VI (a text editor).
So in summary.....I think you can't go wrong with PHP.
Feel free to ask any questions about either language though. Besides myself I think there's a few other web-people on these forums.
Especially since you use a Mac for development. As already mentioned, you can install both PHP and MySQL on your mac (www.php.net, www.mysql.com) for free.
I have had experience with just about all permutations of Apache, ASP, IIS, PHP and MySQL on all platforms, and have found Apache + PHP + MySQL on linux to be the best.
If you have a spare machine even an old pentium pro or something, I can recommend gentoo linux. (www.gentoo.org). In that last week I have installed this on 2 machines, with Apache2, PHP 4.3 and Oracle9i Clients and have run into 0 problems. There are no errors in the documentation, and even someone without prior linux experience should be up and running just by following the install guide.
As for dev environments, in work on the PC I now use a basic text editor with syntax highlighting (textpad 4), and in my mac at home I use hydra or dreamweaver (source code view 99% of the time).
HTH.
If you match your downloaded disk image to the chipset you are installing it on, you don't even need to do that, its done for you.
You all seem to be a lot more behind PHP, I like the Idea of it being an open source language. ASP is something that a guy who we collaborate with is pushing (he works with ASP).
Right apologies for the daft questions coming!
1 - Is ASP really more powerful than PHP?
2 - With PHP can I make a searchable photo web gallery that our clients can download images from?
3 - Can I link PHP to our filemaker databases?
4 - Can I make a website that will recognise a user and give them relevant content?
5 - Can I do the following in PHP? Calendars? Forums? e- commerce?
I know these are daft questions but I need to know these things to be able to justify the cost of training to my boss.
Also does anyone know any decent training agents in the UK?
Cheers
Jon-e-orange
Originally posted by jon-e-orange
Thank you for your responses guys.
You all seem to be a lot more behind PHP, I like the Idea of it being an open source language. ASP is something that a guy who we collaborate with is pushing (he works with ASP).
Right apologies for the daft questions coming!
1 - Is ASP really more powerful than PHP?
not in any way i can think of
2 - With PHP can I make a searchable photo web gallery that our clients can download images from?
yes, i did this pretty recently actually.
3 - Can I link PHP to our filemaker databases?
i'm not sure, cuz i've never worked with filemaker before.
4 - Can I make a website that will recognise a user and give them relevant content?
yes, if you'd like to see an example, try going to http://forums.appleinsider.com/
5 - Can I do the following in PHP? Calendars? Forums? e- commerce?
yes, yes ,yes, yes.
Thanks for the imput. I guess I should have looked at the url in this post - Doh!
Jon-e-orange
Originally posted by jon-e-orange
Cheers Freak
Thanks for the imput. I guess I should have looked at the url in this post - Doh!
Jon-e-orange
He meant vB as in vBulletin, the software that runs this board.
As far as your "Is ASP more powerful than PHP" question...well...
If you want to create Office documents on the fly or interact with a windows system then yes. At work we create excel files dynamically. It is very easy with ASP. It is also really easy to interact with other parts of the Windows file system.
However.....if you're using PHP, especially on a Unix box, you can interact with that filesystem easily too.
I wouldn't recommend using PHP on a Microsoft Windows system. For that you should really use ASP. Microsoft products work better with each other.
PHP is best used with Apache on any flavor of Unix (including Linux and OS X)
Thanks for the info. so far I am leaning towards PHP.
What kind of output I can get from PHP? Can I get tabbed text? or something that can be brought into excel/word/filemaker?
Can I link to filemaker or (any other) databases so that any info entered on the website is entered automatically.
Will I have the same functionality with PHP on Windows and Mac?
sorry if some of these are dumb questions but if I don't ask I won't know.
[B]Good question! I use both actually. Well at work (the DoD) we only use ASP but for all of my freelance gigs I use PHP.
The biggest advantage with ASP is Microsoft's IDE - Visual InterDev. But thats expensive too. I haven't found a good IDE that I like for PHP so I just use VI (a text editor).
Have you seen JEdit? I have been using this IDE for quite some time now, and the plug-ins are in abundance.
Originally posted by jon-e-orange
Cheers Willoughby,
Thanks for the info. so far I am leaning towards PHP.
What kind of output I can get from PHP? Can I get tabbed text? or something that can be brought into excel/word/filemaker?
Can I link to filemaker or (any other) databases so that any info entered on the website is entered automatically.
Will I have the same functionality with PHP on Windows and Mac?
sorry if some of these are dumb questions but if I don't ask I won't know.
php generally is used to format web pages, so its output, directly, doesn't go into word, filemaker, excel or any kind of program besides a web browser. (Same goes for ASP) But, it can connect with databases (i'm not familiar with filemaker, and i haven't tried using excel with php, so i'm not sure about those. it does work with sql, like mysql, and big dbs like oracle, and many more; more info avail at www.php.net). you can read, write or do whatever kind of stuff with dbs. the way you feed back to a db is often done (for me atleast), is you create a html form (in your php page), that has boxes or menus for all the db's table's fields, validating perhaps against values select'd from the db, then, on post-back, you do an insert or update on the db within php code (or asp code), inserting the form's values into the proper places of the insert/update/etc statement. and, as far as windows and mac uses, i'm about 99% certain that pages you make can work on both sides. the only exception being if ur pages (most likely in non-php sections) use activex controls or other windows-only "functionality", in which case it wouldn't work on a mac or other non-windows computer; thats not likely to be php-related functionality though. asp does have some (perhaps many) "features" that interact more directly with office and some windows-only type interactivity. for example, i'm pretty sure that there isn't an easy way to get input or output directly from an excel file in php, but i fairly certain it can be done in asp.
Originally posted by jon-e-orange
What kind of output I can get from PHP? Can I get tabbed text? or something that can be brought into excel/word/filemaker?[/i]
PHP is made to make displaying data that is contained within a SQL database (also for inputing/changing that same data). ASP is much the same.
If you would like, you can write php code to output data in tabbed text. But, if you are taking data entered via a web form and you are trying to input that data into a SQL database, then you have no need for tabbed text; PHP will input data very nicely.
Can I link to filemaker or (any other) databases so that any info entered on the website is entered automatically.
I doubt asp or php will work with filemaker. I believe that you will need a SQL database.
Will I have the same functionality with PHP on Windows and Mac?
Yes. But, you will have to deal with using widoze (lots of crashes etc...)
sorry if some of these are dumb questions but if I don't ask I won't know.
fine. please keep asking. the only dumb question is the one that goes unasked.
PHP and Macs: to my knowledge, php will only work on a Mac running 10.X.
Databases: Filemaker (much like Access) is just a poor database for the web. You are very limited in the number of connections and once you have a few people hitting the database, your connection (well really, your database) slows to a crawl.
I would suggest mySQL or postgress sql. Both are free, both are easy to use (if you know a little SQL) and you can move your information from filemaker into mysql/postgress fairly easially. Check versiontracker, I belive that there is an app. just for moving data from filemaker to mysql.
I (unfortunatly, because I have developed a hate for filemaker) have some experience with converting filemaker data into mysql data. Feel free to PM or email me if you want.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
php generally is used to format web pages, so its output, directly, doesn't go into word, filemaker, excel or any kind of program besides a web browser. (Same goes for ASP)
You can use ASP to generate an excel spreadsheet or microsoft word document. Actually, any Office document. When the user calls up the ASP page in their browser, the document is returned instead of HTML.
If they are on a Mac, they will get a save dialog box to save the file. If they are on the PC and Office is installed, the file will open in Office.
Believe me, we use ASP to do a lot more than just format web pages at work. We create complete database driven applications. The only difference is that there is no installer and all of the "software" runs through a web browser.
I am going to go with PHP!
The main reason is that development on the mac with be easier, also I like the idea that it is a open source language.
Jon-e-orange
FX.PHP: a PHP class for connecting to FileMaker databases.
And hey -- it's free.
My boss is sorting out a course and info would be great thanks.
Dobby.
Originally posted by dobby
If you know javascript then use java.
Dobby.
JavaScript and Java have nothing to do with each other.