PHP vs ASP vs ColdFusion

[REZN8]

It seems that PHP is the preferred choice among the NG users. Is it because it's easiest to learn and it's free? I personally use ColdFusion and wanted to know why you people use PHP over the others.

[liljim]

At 11/11/01 07:44 AM, REZIN wrote: It seems that PHP is the preferred choice among the NG users. Is it because it's easiest to learn and it's free? I personally use ColdFusion and wanted to know why you people use PHP over the others.

I use PHP because:
1/. It's free.
2/. It's not made by Microsoft (and is therefore less buggy).
3/. It's not made by Microsoft (so bugs get fixed rather than thrown on a pile, forgotten about after a few months, and re-released in a new package after a year).
4/. The support is incredible, and the documentation is fantastic. If you write an email to the help list, you often get an answer from one of the developers of the program. Just how often would you expect to be talking with Bill Gates? :-)
5/. I prefer the programming syntax.

[Pecos]

At 11/11/01 08:57 AM, liljim wrote:

At 11/11/01 07:44 AM, REZIN wrote: It seems that PHP is the preferred choice among the NG users. Is it because it's easiest to learn and it's free? I personally use ColdFusion and wanted to know why you people use PHP over the others.

I use PHP because:
1/. It's free.
2/. It's not made by Microsoft (and is therefore less buggy).
3/. It's not made by Microsoft (so bugs get fixed rather than thrown on a pile, forgotten about after a few months, and re-released in a new package after a year).
4/. The support is incredible, and the documentation is fantastic. If you write an email to the help list, you often get an answer from one of the developers of the program. Just how often would you expect to be talking with Bill Gates? :-)
5/. I prefer the programming syntax.

First of all, PHP gives you zero support - don't mistake support for online help and documentation. Support it something you pay for when you buy a product. And no open source project ever gives you support.

Secondly, while PHP is pretty good for someone who doesn't want to get their hands dirty in the code, it's not the only one or the best one. It all depends on what you want to do - if you want to just pull some info out of a database and display it on a webpage, PHP is for you. But if you're dealing with a slightly more complex system that involves data manipulation, algorithms, etc.. then PHP isn't the best thing out there.

Yes, ASP does suck.. real bad. At first I was reluctant to use it just because it had VBScript behind it (obvious reasons why that sucks ass). But I ended up using it for one of my projects at work anyway - it was horrible! Its complete lack of some of the most basic functionality slowed down my development progress and really annoyed me.

Anyway, other than PHP you might also want to try JSP - it's Java and therefore platform-independent and much more powerful than PHP in some respect. You can get a free Java Servlet engine from Apache, it's called Tomcat.

I don't know much about ColdFusion - I hear it's easy to learn, so that's something else you can try.

[thatEVILguy]

first of all, if you don't know how to program, or don't want to learn, then what the hell are you doing trying to use php in the first place. php.net offers support, as well as a very organized and indepth handbook.

[Pecos]

At 11/29/01 06:05 AM, thatEVILguy wrote: first of all, if you don't know how to program, or don't want to learn, then what the hell are you doing trying to use php in the first place. php.net offers support, as well as a very organized and indepth handbook.

You're mistaking support for online help/documentation. Support means you call them and they tell you how to fix shit.. or they send a consultant over. And php don't do that.

[REZN8]

At 11/29/01 06:05 AM, thatEVILguy wrote: first of all, if you don't know how to program, or don't want to learn, then what the hell are you doing trying to use php in the first place. php.net offers support, as well as a very organized and indepth handbook.

Did I say that I don't know how to program or that I didn't want to learn?