PHP vs ASP.NET

[Adrian Aisemberg]

Hi all,

I'm starting a new project from scratch. A web project.
I'm not a web-designer.
I know very good C#.
I know very little ASP.NET.
I know some PHP.


"php vs asp.net" / "asp.net vs php" gives me half a million google results.
Your word is better than all of them.


- I don't have any money, so more points for free things (mysql, apache etc) [+ for php]
- I love learning new stuff (new to me)
- I know (assume) that the internet is a linux world [+ for php]
- No Visual Studio for php [+ for aspx]
- AMP (apache, mysql, php) is much easier to deploy and maintain [+ for php]

I'm still missing the following:
- Performance?
- Debugging?
- Remote debugging?
- Testing?
- Any other thing I haven't think of.

My heart and mind say php.
They say: "It's about time you start doing some real web-coding!".


Do you have any suggestions?
Please enlighten me.



Thanks,
Adrian Aisemberg
www.sharpregion.com
www.svnmonitor.com

[Abraham Shilon]

It's about time you start doing some real web-coding!

Just kidding :)

Well, I don't PHP, but I find it hard to believe that PHP has an equivalent advanced, all encompassing framework as the .NET Framework.
Well, maybe  the Zend framework, I don't know...
Anyway, the .net framework is much more than just asp.net (which in itself is a huge framework), so you do a get vast array of tools for your needs.
Besides, I hate PHP! (no, not really. just fooling around).
I think that Facebook is written in PHP, but i might be wrong, but if it is, you can see that it is also a viable solution.
I just love and work in C# so that's my preference but i'm prejudiced.
Good day!
Avi

[Amir Simantov]

Hi Adrian,

I was in your place a year ago.

Do you have lots of calculation in this site or is it mainly a content site? If the latter, go Drupal 6 (php). This framework gives you a ready CMS but needs to be learned. Also, this framework is UI oriented, so you will not find layers really. Also, not much Object Oriented but you do have some king of encapsulation and entry points (procedural "hooking", in Drupal, duck-notaion based). Drupal Israel is in drupal.org.il and is a vibrant community.

I don't know Zend.

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[Ori Peleg]

My suggestion: go with a good framework that models the web well.

• In PHP, the Zend Framework is great (there are also alternatives, like CakePHP).
• In .NET, try ASP.NET MVC (stay the __ away from WebForms).
• If you're open-minded, there are more great alternatives (from Python's Django to Groovy's Grails).

Your point about price is a good one - I think people underestimate the cost of development environments, server OS's, etc..

If you learn well on your own, going for a full open-source stack will save you money. (I expect this opinion to be challenged on a .NET mailing list :)

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Adrian Aisemberg <adriana...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Check out my blog: http://orip.org

[Adrian Aisemberg]

Thank you all for the quick replies!

Regarding the site function: it's not a content site. It's more like a service (many web-services) and a frontend. Joomla may be a good platform for the frontend.
Regarding the richness of the .net framework: The server-side code is mainly data-mining stuff, so not much of the .net framework will be used.
All the back-side data-mining is done separately, so the front can be php and the back can be either one, according to the time it takes to create the system and to performance issues.
In-addition, the data-mining will probably need a lot of debugging, so .net for that part may be the right choice, and it doesn't have to be aspx. A windows-Service can do the job.

Here:
The raw data comes from the php web-service into the db.
When a user reads the processed data, the php frontend calls a .net web-service from a server that reads the data from the db.
That way, we get a "standard" web-site (for me, "standard" means AMP on a Linux),
and we get high debuggability of the data-mining in the .net server.
Only the .net box is not free. the db and frontend stay free. Good.



Zend looks promising. Never used it. I'll give it a try.



Adrian Aisemberg
www.sharpregion.com
www.svnmonitor.com

[Adrian Aisemberg]

Good one:
(Source: http://www.soopertutorials.com/technology/programming/2475-aspnet-php.html)






Adrian Aisemberg
www.sharpregion.com
www.svnmonitor.com

[Ori Peleg]

I detect bias based on ignorance in TFA. I'm sorry to say the table means nothing.

[Ken Egozi]

Monorail (which is an MVC implementation on-top of ASP.NET) gives you the cleanliness of rails, html control of php/rails/etc., power of ASP.NET pipeline and the BCL, lots of syntactic sugar and convenience coding the way Castle Project is.

And it runs quite smoothly on Mono, so you *can* use linux if you're building a large farm and is short on the 400$~ for WinServer web edition

--
Ken Egozi.
http://www.kenegozi.com/blog
http://www.delver.com
http://www.musicglue.com
http://www.castleproject.org
http://www.idcc.co.il - הכנס הקהילתי הראשון למפתחי דוטנט - בואו בהמוניכם

[Adrian Aisemberg]

Monorail. I'll check it.
Thanks Ken.





Adrian Aisemberg
www.sharpregion.com
www.svnmonitor.com

[Dotan N.]

i really dont like the "facebook using php" argument. it means nothing.
since they are compiling their own php, i bet there is not much left of it. further, services of that scale probably combine a lot of technologies to achieve their goals, so php might not be the factor of success, infrastructure-wise.

i'm familiar with many web frameworks/technologies to a point that it becomes a fetish, and based on that, i would stay clear of php and do what you know best (C#), with monorail as ken suggested, in your situation anything else would be a waste of time.
you would have to make the mental switch to MVC world (which is sweet).

[Adrian Aisemberg]

Dotan, love your comment. Thanks!
We've decided to spend the following days researching the various tech options we have, focusing on monorail.



Adrian Aisemberg
www.sharpregion.com
www.svnmonitor.com