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Your thoughs on ASP.NET?

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:43 am
by Hurreman
When I first got into webdevelopment, I ended up learning ASP. I thought it felt clumsy, and I really prefer C-Style syntax instead of VB-style.
So when my girlfriend told me to learn PHP a few years later, I fell in love! I got more effective and ended up developing websites a lot faster and without running into as many "problems" as I did before. Now it's been another couple of years, and I've ended up looking at ASP.NET since my new job is based around ASP2 and .NET.

With the new ASP.NET AJAX Extension out for Visual Studio 2005, developing ajax applications is a real walk in the park. Suddenly, I find myself thinking of giving up development with PHP to save up on development-times with Asp.NET, and spend more time on layout instead.

I just thought I'd share my thoughts.

What are YOUR thoughts, impressions and experiences with asp.net?

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:25 am
by jayshields
Well I don't have many thoughts on ASP.NET because of my lack fo experience with it, but I agree that C style syntax is alot easier to code/read. You do know that there are alot of AJAX toolkits available now which greatly speed up AJAX development? Check out scriptaculous, jQuery, prototype, etc.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:01 am
by Hurreman
but I agree that C style syntax is alot easier to code/read
Good thing that ASP.NET now can be coded in C#.

You do know that there are alot of AJAX toolkits available now which greatly speed up AJAX development? Check out scriptaculous, jQuery, prototype, etc.
I've seen them around, but never paid much attention to them.


Work is the reason I'm thinking of giving up on PHP. Since I'm pretty new to .NET, it would help the learning process by using it at home as well, instead of switching between PHP and .NET. And yes, I tried converting my co-workers to start using PHP when I first started here, but they've got some very good arguments :roll:

I guess I have to do some benchmarking and see what I end up liking the most. Hard to say at this point since I don't have enough experience with .net yet, compared to PHP...

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:50 am
by feyd
Hurreman wrote:Work is the reason I'm thinking of giving up on PHP. Since I'm pretty new to .NET, it would help the learning process by using it at home as well, instead of switching between PHP and .NET. And yes, I tried converting my co-workers to start using PHP when I first started here, but they've got some very good arguments :roll:
Let me guess, something about tradition or crap thereof? :lol:

Don't get me wrong, I love .Net, but considering the hosting requirements (and costs), I can't really see it as a "better" solution to PHP or even Java.

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:04 am
by veridicus
I left 10 years of development on Windows to get onto Linux and PHP and out of the perpetual vendor lock-in. .NET had made it to its second version and I was sick of it. I really, really, hate .NET. I used it professionally for 2 years, so I got to know it inside and out. It's no more than a decent re-implementation of Java. I took a huge paycut to move to a platform that was new to me and I'm still much happier for it.

AJAX is so easy to do with any language that the toolkit in .NET gives you nothing valuable at all.

I tell everyone they should stay away from Microsoft software for many reasons. I even wrote an entire web site about it. Basing a software development career on .NET means letting Microsoft dictate your future. Stick with more open platforms.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:46 am
by Hurreman
Basing a software development career on .NET means letting Microsoft dictate your future. Stick with more open platforms.
I prefer basing a software development career on versatility. I just find it interesting listening to people with 20 or more years in the business talking about their experiences.
And I never say no to a challenge, like convincing old VB/ASP/.NET developers who doesn't see what's wrong with table layouts, that web standards and opensource is actually a good thing!

Just hard when co-workers have been in the business for about as long as I've been alive :roll:

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:46 am
by daedalus__
Keep doing PHP but learn C#. There is nothing wrong with learning new languages. I highly advocate being fluent in several languages, I am going to learn as many as I can in the next year or two. I've been learning C# lately and I think that it is fantastic for writing Windows Forms applications. I have no idea what ASP.NET is like, though. A friend of mine who switched from PHP to ASP.NET/C# thinks that it is the holy grail of web programming.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:22 am
by Hurreman
I will always use PHP for my own "hobbyist" projects. Hosting solutions and costs for .NET are way too steep.
I also agree that C# (Or VB.NET) is awesome for quickly creating simple windows applications.
ASP.NET is the same. Creating quick and dirty web applications for internal use can't get much simpler.

Where I run into problems with ASP.NET however is when I want more control over the generated HTML and layout.
It does offcourse have a lot to do with my lack of knowledge for .NET and especially VS2005. I'll know more in a couple of weeks / months.

I have no idea what I want to do in the future, but I like having more than one option. And I think ignoring .NET is a bad idea.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:00 am
by Skittlewidth
I've been coding solely in ASP.NET/VB.NET for a month now due to a sudden change of job, and yes I do miss PHP, mostly because I know where I am with it, but I'm finding that I'm not hating ASP.NET.

I like being able to programmatically access html page elements and work with their properties, for example not having to echo a variable in between the relevant attribute tag or construct strings of HTML to output to the page.

I'm not sure if I like ASP.NET's set of web controls, and would really much rather use a normal HTML element with runat="server" but I'm trying to get used to them. I get the impression that the way in which some ASP.NET web controls work continues to encourage developers to stick with table based layouts, which I find infuriating. I'm still getting the hang of databinding which seems to be a potentially useful feature, if only I could figure out how to make it let me bind to something other than a table based DataGrid etc. (Still using ASP.NET 1.1 here, which isn't helping) I'm sure I'll get comfortable with it eventually.

I don't like VB syntax and never have done, but every one else here uses VB not C# so it's better that I comply - especially whilst I'm learning the ropes and need their help.

I do like Web User Controls, but I can't really explain why. It's just an include file really, but it helps you to write very defined modules to your web projects.

I don't like not having functions like mysql_insert_id() at my disposal, and the date format strings confuse me after I'd learned most of PHP/MySQL's off by heart. Just silly quirks like that.

At the end of the day I think I'd be happy to be good at both languages to make sure I'm employable as possible the next time I'm out of work!

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:07 am
by Jenk
I often get riddiculed (probably too strong a word..) by some friends who are .NET developers, for wanting a job which is PHP and/or Java based.

They have the primary argument that PHP and it's community is not as mature as .NET's (in terms of .NET developers are usually those who are professional, where as possibly half or more of PHP's community are hobbyists and younger people.)

How Ironic.. :lol:

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:46 am
by mikeq
veridicus wrote:I even wrote an entire web site about it. Basing a software development career on .NET means letting Microsoft dictate your future. Stick with more open platforms.
Early on in your article

"In the forward to an old OS/2 book Bill Gates proclaims the joint operating system venture between Microsoft and IBM to be "the future of computing." That didn't turn out as he imagined. OS/2, which was supposed to be a replacement for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows™, was abandoned by Microsoft and left in the hands of IBM. Microsoft took the version they had and turned it into Windows NT. IBM, the company which provided the hardware for Microsoft's initial success, was left to compete on the software front and in this case failed. This is a clear example of Microsoft turning on an ally."

Thats not quite true.

Years ago I read an interesting book on the fall of Big Blue, this breakdown was more IBMs fault and their inability to change with a fast moving market and their dislike for Microsoft. Some of the reasons for disliking MS employees was that they didn't wear suits and ties and follow the many many lines of bureacracy in place at IBM.

Afraid I didnt continue to read your article after that. Seems like it was going to be very one sided after that statement.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:09 pm
by veridicus
mikeq wrote:"This is a clear example of Microsoft turning on an ally."

Thats not quite true.
IBM and Microsoft split on their joint projects. They were allies and turned on each other. IBM didn't like Microsoft for various reasons and weren't very interested in keeping a partnership. Microsoft took software which was partly written by IBM and continued their own product line with it.

Microsoft did turn on an ally. And so did IBM. Nothing is wrong with my statements. I'm simply not interested in coverying IBM's side of the story in this particular case.

It's your choice to not read what you consider one-sided articles. But that doesn't make them untrue.

Re: Your thoughs on ASP.NET?

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:09 pm
by evilmonkey
Hurreman wrote:So when my girlfriend told me to learn PHP a few years later, I fell in love!
With PHP or your girlfriend? :lol:

Sorry, I couldn't resist. :D