Most new web developers tend to start with PHP, its easy to learn, it is free to host and a pretty reliable programming language which is getting slightly bloated now because of the constant changes. In this article I will be giving my options on two of the most popular server side languages open source PHP and Microsoft’s ASP.NET

PHP

We all have a specific favorite, I am a classic ASP developer but my primary focus is PHP. I learnt to program when I first started with server side development. While PHP is a favourite of many it still has its teething problems. Now PHP is moving towards OOP, the programming language have become slightly bloated, with redundant functions, and upgrading could break older adaptions of in-built functions.

For smaller systems PHP is perfect. Handling emails, small CMS functionality PHP does it well. When building more complex web systems, having to update code so the system does not break can prove troublesome for example including $globals which a lot of PHP setups now remove this as a security procedure.

ASP.NET C#

This is something even I would like to get into. Many friends who deal with this language tells me how fantastic it is as a development platform with visual studio. My option on this is creating small websites with minimum functionality would be overkill, as ASP.NET integrates a proper programming language.

For wide scale content systems, XML Web services, this is perfect. The procedure of creating websites with ASP.NET is very different to PHP and because it is a closed platform may put people off, Microsoft has put a lot of effort with the mistakes learnt with classic ASP. I recommend anyone expanding there knowledge or want to move on from PHP C# ASP.NET is the way to go.

Conclusion

While I do think AS.NET is overkill for the small site it can help with large complex websites. Though hosting ASP.NET websites is expensive due to paying  a  licence to host your websites compared to the free hosting with PHP. PHP is getting better when it comes to building complex websites though the language is messy and what you use today will not guarantee it will work tomorrow.

I advise getting your feet wet and trying out both of these languages because at the end if comes down to personal preference. What you feel comfortable with.

Getting a job?

Some people may argue with this but what language is preferred when getting a job in the industry? PHP is free and flexible, ASP.NET has Microsoft in its name and big businesses are more familiar with this language. I would consider PHP is more of a hobby type language while ASP.NET is geared towards big corporate environments which seems to be what they all want.

Do a job search and find out which language is more in demand? When looking for a job I noticed there was a lot more ASP.NET jobs compared to PHP. While I do not think it is fair as they are both as good as each other, just many businesses lead towards Microsoft as the big company who knows all and a lot of businesses are foolishly lead to believe that ASP.NET is the best solution even when it is more expensive to product these websites and all they want is a static website with a working contact form.

ASP vs PHP check out this link for further details.

One of the jobs is to create a function splitting a textbox form values into individual variables then inserted into database.  Why? it is a long story. It feels more like reverse engineering rather than making something which was pratical. It is quite complex to sort and validate without PHP’s useful functions.

On of the projects I am working on is a simple CMS for an anime registration and news system. Not based on any framework I am hoping to provide a simple fulll fledge working custom made system. Most anime conventions follow the same design pattern so once it is implemented it should be robust for most conventions to use.