ASP vs CFML n Boss's Plan - Advice?

ATS16805

hello. having had my first Web Application experience w/ ColdFusion, and being unemployed, i answered an ad re: cfml developer needed: duties may include LAN admin, tech support, etc - basically, a jack-of-all-trades who can also design and develop with ColdFusion. "this sounds like a great opportunity!", i thought. feeling pretty confident that i could satisfy their needs for this position, i interviewed, and got the gig! my reasoning being that an opportunity to gain development experience, albeit part-time, in an office-environment was worth a try-- even if the specifics won't involve my current focus on PHP.

as it stands, the organization is happy w/ an existing ColdFusion powered site, for which development was completed by a person who has since departed the org. apparently, the established goal was to have him convert the rest of their web application sites to ColdFusion-- because of the success that this guy had w/ the one(s) which he completed in CFML.

having never come into a project "mid-way" like this before, i decided it would be important to research the current state of things, so i downloaded and burned the relevant "site files" to CD for review on my own time at home. i see that the incomplete, not-yet-converted sites are written in what appears to be shoddy asp. ultimately, i realize that it is my duty to convert these asp sites to cfml.

the ColdFusion part, i think i can handle okay-- but it's the ASP i'm concerned with-- i've never played w/ asp before! (regular old asp, not dotNet). what i have installed on my home-system is Apache2 and ColdFusion mx7. i did some research in which i found that it's possible to do asp dev on Apache2. i d/l the recommended apps and modules, but before i begin w/ that-- i'd like some advice.

first off-- i may try to convince this guy to ditch ColdFusion and go w/ PHP-- see, every year things change for them because of student-turnover-- so every year they seem to have a new visionary who has a plan for their web apps. apparently, i'm the first coldfusion / php guy, so it makes sense to them to have me go the coldfusion route. i, however, disagree-- it seems to me that it would be most cost-effective for them to go all PHP. my guess (and i could be wrong of course) is that, in any case there's a better chance of coming across php developers than coldfusion (i don't know if it's safe to throw asp out the window, or what-- but since i don't know asp, i can't really argue that end of it).

so, i pose two questions for rhetorical discussion.
1.) how would you go about convincing a CEO-type to go PHP instead of ColdFusion (which, bear in mind would require the re-write of a perfectly good coldfusion app = more work, ultimately)

2.) in any event, i'm faced w/ taking apart asp apps and converting them. do you have any advice for how a guy who knows mostly PHP could go about reconstructing (or at least understanding) those asp apps? do you know of any references which draw comparisons / expose similarities and differences between php and asp? should i just bag the asp work altogether and start from scratch?

so far, intuitively, i can sort-of tell what's going on w/ the asp stuff, but it looks like there are some things which are quite different from php (like the .inc files?), so i'm really unsure-- wanting to avoid a productivity-draining amount of research, i'm just trying to decide which way to focus my time. (i hope that makes sense, what i'm trying to say here...). i appreciate any feedback! thanks!

thanks for reading!!

thorpe

1/ I wouldn't push your luck with trying to push a new tech on your new boss. In his mind, if it aint broke, dont fix it.

2/ Programming languages are programming languages, and usually once you know one, most others are easier to understand / learn. There is an asp2php converter around (if you google) that may help you understand more, but then again, last I heard it was a little buggy so might make things worse.

As for developing asp on an apache server, Im afraid what you have read about might be a little misleading. You see, asp itself isn't a language. It is a framework available to aid in the developement of web applications. This framework can be utilized from several different languages, the most common (nearly all examples on the net) is MS's vbscript. To develope asp on apache you need to use python as the scripting language, and I would assume the sites your company already has are done in vbscript.

Weedpacket

Besides, isn't ASP supposed to have been phased out in favour of ASP.NET?

piersk

Not yet. There are still loads of companies who use ASP rather than ASP.NET, especially over here in the UK.

I get more job ads sent to me for ASP than ASP.NET and PHP combined!

ATS16805

piersk wrote:
more job ads sent to me for ASP than ASP.NET and PHP combined!

my two cents on that (they being worth maybe about 1.2 cents, or so... hehe), is that anyone who has XP Pro (or Home even if you tweak) has ASP, so-- there's your majority. eh?

hey Thorpe, thanks for the heads up about the asp2php thing. and the good ol' if it ain't broke bit-- i'd have to agree, hence my wishing to see what kind of discourse this thread might elicit. i guess i was hoping for some wild story about how someone methodically staged a way to make a comparison, show bottom lines, etc., and then say-- so "lemme do the PHP!".
😉 yes, i do live in a dream world. ah-- it's fun sometimes, you should join me! hehe.

looks like i'm going to be doing from the ground-up anyway, so i don't think i'm going to have to worry about the ASP stuff at all. i'm glad of that, and as Thorpe said-- it isn't that difficult to understand-- sort of like trying to decipher pig-latin English, or something. 🙂

in all, i'm really excited about the gig-- for several reasons-- largely just for the personal experience and learning from which i'm sure i'll benefit, and which i can surely use as well!

rbblue8

do the php!

no one needs a php engine to run it / view. also.. about the whole boss thing. I say ask him.
1) you never know where you may end up.
2) he may think it's a good idea
3) you are new.. is it not your job to make suggestions on how to inprove things based on your personall Xp?
4) come at it from a cost view. How long was that position free before you filled it? get a couple other job listings that say php this, php that so he knows the market demand (and then you can inplant the idea of, It would be easy to find some one out there with php skills b/c the market demand is so high).
5) flat out tell him.. I know php.. not ASP. I worth more to you using php then asp.

oh and.
Do it in PHP!

ATS16805

yo, RB, you diggin' the PHP or what? heehee

i think i misrepresented the situation-- this guy likes ColdFusion-- (bear in mind, he'a pretty young probably early 40's) i think he taught himself ASP in college or something-- and then realized that he could do a LOT more w/ COldFusion because this CF wiz came in a busted out all these little apps for him. nothing complex, but they work ya know? so-- i think he figures if i do them in coldfusion, then he can get in there and do stuff too if he wants/ needs to. and PHP, he knows nothing about. i was asking him advice on PHP / Apache, and he was like "you're talkin' over my head there man, i know nothing about PHP".

hell, he doesn't even wanna let me use HomeSite instead of Dreamweaver, so.... get the idea where i'm comin' from now? i think he's had enough change for this year. BUT, i think i can work on him a bit. just give me a few months to get dug-in. once i know i'm not goign anywhere, i'll start workin' him! 🙂
after all, it's for the good of the university!

bpat1434

ATS:

I too was in a similar position once. I took over a website from a previous "webmaster" and it was a slew of individual HTML pages. So I said: "I can get you hosting for less than $100 per year, and give you a site that is easily updated. Interested?" They of course went for it. Well, after two and a half years of developing, I got booted from the project because they didn't understand how to work it. I made it as easy as possible, log-on, add items, save. But these people were 50 - 60 years old, and computers were like the new Birth Control patch to them (didn't need it).

I'd say, if it's for a university, push PHP and Apache. Most servers are more stable in a UNIX environment, and the user-base for support is tremendous. Most Universities use a UNIX environment strictly because it's more cost effective. To use MS products you have to actually purchase "licenceses". Plus the OS is not all that great. With a UNIX environment, they can customize everything and even do it for 150% less than what they're doing it for now. You could use cold-fusion, but once again: hefty applications and prices. PHP is free, and most editors are free for it too!!

If they want to be a university, and they're looking for the cost-effective measure, they'll go PHP. But if he's stuck on it, give them some numbers. Write an ASP script and a PHP script and benchmark them. Show them that it can perform better, or be better, and more likely than not, they'll go with what they're shown.

Actions speak louder than words...

Weedpacket

Another thing about the university environment is that (assuming it has CS or SE departments) an OSS environment is much more research-friendly: it's much easier to hack on Apache than IIS, for example.