Why develop in PHP?

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sport15710
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Why develop in PHP?

Post by sport15710 »

HI, This may not be the right place for this but who better to give reasons for using PHP then PHP developers. I come from an ASP background and so yesterday I installed PHP and MySql on my computer.

I wrote a couple of programs in PHP and it seems very powerful however if I have sites usings ASP and Access databases why would or should I start using PHP? I have found a lot of sites that say PHP is great and the best and so on. But I am trying to understand why I should now go down a PHP path.

Can someone try and help me decide by either comparing PHP and ASP or explaining why PHP is the way to go?

I apoligize if this is the wrong place for this post but like I said what better place to go than PHP developers. But a sticky of some of the benefits of PHP might be a good idea. Just a suggestion

Thks :?:
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twigletmac
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Post by twigletmac »

I gathered a few threads similar to this at one point:
viewtopic.php?t=6066&highlight=asp+php

One of PHPs major advantages over ASP is its portability - you can run it on lots of different webservers under a bunch of different operating systems, ASP is intended for Windows and IIS. Plus there is the number of different components that PHP has built in that for ASP you'd have to buy. Which you use may also impact the cost of your web hosting - Linux servers are generally cheaper than Windows ones.

One thing that may make more of a difference than PHP vs. ASP is Access vs. MySQL - basically Access was never intended to be used as anything more than a desktop database and struggles under heavy load. MySQL is a much better choice than Access for use on the web:
http://www.mysql.com/information/crash- ... &access=on

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m3mn0n
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Post by m3mn0n »

Microsoft vs Open Source



I'd pick Open source anyday. :wink:
sport15710
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Post by sport15710 »

Tks for your response.

I read all the posts and will attempt to summarize(kinda) what I read. These are the reasons I got from the posts as to why PHP is the way to go.

1) Its NOT microsoft. That may be a legit or valid reason but I do not care. I only care about functionality of the product. I am not fond of big corporations but again who cares if it does what I want it to do.

2) Its FREE. I like this one.

3) Its open source. I like this also. Back to Microsoft for a sec. If a change was reguired in ASP.net and PHP what would be completed first?

4) The functionality arguments were a little confusing. PHP developers said that anything ASP can do so can PHP. Does that mean they are equal in what they can do?

5) The security points concerns me. I can understand the point that because it is Microsoft more hackers try and break ASP. That I can live with because if a good hacker wanted to break anything they probably could. A few posters said that you could view ASP source and you could not view PHP. Correct me if I am wrong but I though you could not see either.

Those were the main points I got out of all the posts. Feel free to add or correct anything I posted.

Now to the Access vs MySql question.

I have read that MySql is free but on their site I noticed alot of places where they had prices listed. Am I missing something here or are they just talking about If you wanted to change the source of MySql.

And I think you said that MySql has much better performance then Access but If you are dealing with small amounts of data would that make any difference?

After reading all the posts I am convinced that If I were starting a new application PHP would be the way to go but I am also convinced that If I am using ASP there is no reason to change.

Any comments?
sport15710
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Post by sport15710 »

Another summary I forgot to add about the benefit of PHP is its portability. The fact you can use it on almost all(maybe all) platforms and servers. That is a very good benefit If you need to move it. If you do not need to move your ASP solution well its no big deal.
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twigletmac
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Post by twigletmac »

sport15710 wrote:Tks for your response.

I read all the posts and will attempt to summarize(kinda) what I read. These are the reasons I got from the posts as to why PHP is the way to go.

1) Its NOT microsoft. That may be a legit or valid reason but I do not care. I only care about functionality of the product. I am not fond of big corporations but again who cares if it does what I want it to do.
Everyone does have their own opinions on this - some really hate MS so using anything that's not them is a big plus, for others it's the kind of argument which does nothing for them.
sport15710 wrote:2) Its FREE. I like this one.
So do I <g>
sport15710 wrote:3) Its open source. I like this also. Back to Microsoft for a sec. If a change was reguired in ASP.net and PHP what would be completed first?
That's it isn't it - the PHP dev team can react quickly because outside developers can spot what's going wrong and submit a proposed fix - with MS you have to rely on them and them alone.
sport15710 wrote:4) The functionality arguments were a little confusing. PHP developers said that anything ASP can do so can PHP. Does that mean they are equal in what they can do?
Out of the box, PHP can do everything ASP can, (and more) except for Application variables.
sport15710 wrote:5) The security points concerns me. I can understand the point that because it is Microsoft more hackers try and break ASP. That I can live with because if a good hacker wanted to break anything they probably could. A few posters said that you could view ASP source and you could not view PHP. Correct me if I am wrong but I though you could not see either.
You shouldn't be able to see either - they're processed on the server-side so the client (ie. the browser) only sees the HTML they output.
sport15710 wrote:Now to the Access vs MySql question.

I have read that MySql is free but on their site I noticed alot of places where they had prices listed. Am I missing something here or are they just talking about If you wanted to change the source of MySql.
It is free for most people but you can purchase support contracts, warrenties and the rights to use the database server in a non-opensource project. Basically, you wouldn't need to pay anything.
sport15710 wrote:And I think you said that MySql has much better performance then Access but If you are dealing with small amounts of data would that make any difference?
Depends, but Access really isn't intended to be used on the web and MySQL is much, much faster.
sport15710 wrote:After reading all the posts I am convinced that If I were starting a new application PHP would be the way to go but I am also convinced that If I am using ASP there is no reason to change.
Changing to PHP might make it easier to take advantage of cheaper web hosting but it depends on the project and if you start doing PHP you may decide to change things over over time.
sport15710 wrote:Another summary I forgot to add about the benefit of PHP is its portability. The fact you can use it on almost all(maybe all) platforms and servers. That is a very good benefit If you need to move it. If you do not need to move your ASP solution well its no big deal.
Depends what type of work you're doing and who you're doing it for - using PHP can mean that if what used to be a Microsoft shop decides to go for Linux they don't have to worry about the website.

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Coco
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Post by Coco »

personally i think that the first point (its NOT MS) is probably the most important. the impression i get is that most hacker types are after the big corps.... so being able to support unusual os's for example, is a big advantage

Noone seems to attack the open source setups (or maybe they do but you just dont hear about it? :? ) so being able to run a system that is somewhere near 100% open source.....
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