PHP better than ASP?

Anon

here is what i know so far, let's see if PHP'ers out there can challenge this and prove to me why PHP is actually better all the way around than ASP.

PHP syntax very terse
ASP syntax rather simple

PHP hard to set up
ASP easy to set up

PHP changes too often, requiring constant upgrading of its core files.
ASP does not change that often (could be viewed as a disadvantage), programmer does not have to worry about new versions that might be out there.

PHP development environment universal
ASP development environment reeks of Microsoft.

so far this opinion of mine is based on people i have talked to and the fact that i am still not able to get PHP set up on my system. anyone care to help? i will thank you many times and pass others your way. i do want to give PHP a chance.

Thomas
icq#26711769
ukhoops@icqmail.com

Anon

My apologies if this post sounds a bit angry or insulting, it is certainly not meant that way.

As with all MS products, ASP is meant for the masses.
PHP can be much more complex and it is therefore more powerfull.

PHP syntax is perfectly easy, especially compared to C or C++ or even Java.
But this is a matter of opinion. If you are a Java programmer you'll hate the way PHP does not require any structuring.
If you are an ASP'er you'll be horrified by the complexity of PHP.

PHP setup is easy (how else can it be such a popular tool).
Setup on my Linux and Solaris machines too me exactly 15 minutes.
It is more complex under win98 because win98 is not a server environment.

PHP does not change often. It get's updated. Backwards compatibility is 100%.
I guess Windows people don't like updates of software and with good reason, updating MS products can be a nightmare.

The fact that you cannot get it to run does not mean PHP is a bad program.
I am a well-versed (even if I say so myself) UNIX man, and I am still not able to get Windows to run without crashing here and hanging there.

Anon

Some responses:

PHP syntax very terse
ASP syntax rather simple

This must be some new meaning of the word 'simple'. A true and
valid contrast would be to say PHP is relatively terse and ASP is
relatively verbose. Which of these is "better" is a completely
different question that may not really have a right answer (rwars,
anyone?)

PHP hard to set up
ASP easy to set up

While I've never set up ASP, so I can't comment on the relative
ease of one vs the other, in absolute terms I found PHP setup quite
simple, at least on Linux. So much so that, if a person told me
they found the difficulty of setting it up to be a true obstacle,
then not only would I not want the person to work on any code
for me in any programming language, I'd be reluctant to even have
them in the same room where code was being written... :-)

PHP changes too often, requiring constant upgrading of its core files.

Completely untrue. Yes, there are frequent updates, which is a good
thing, not a disadvantage, but you are under no obligation to ever
install them if you like your current environment and it's working well
for you.

Anon

I should hasten to add that I've never installed (or even used)
PHP under Windows, so I don't know what troubles may lurk
there. And you may even have problems on some of the less-
common unix variants, but before you chalk that up to the
minus column for PHP, ask yourself if ASP is even available
in that case!

Anon

i should have clarified my situation, thanks guys/gals for responding to me. yes, i am baby of Windows and already (it took this long?) i can tell that i am not really advancing my computing or programming knowledge just because i have stuck with Windows. you are right, so far it seems that ASP can not be developed in the Unix/Linux environment. here is what i have to work with in technology. note that i have no one as my "Admin", i am running my own machine at home.

my sole machine has the following to work with:

one computer, 2 hard drives

<< HARD-DRIVE "A" >>
13 gigs, 7200 RPM
want to put Windows NT Server on it
* want to do ASP development from there. i can not agree that adding JavaScript and VBScript into ASP makes it that confusing, because ASP practically is composed of VBScript, and doesn't everyone add JavaScript into their PHP? so, i don't see the difference there, yet. i don't know how difficult it would be to set up databases in the Linux environment, and so far it doesn't seem that the most popular databases out there are supported in such an environment. can PHP connect to Access '97 or SQL Server DB's?

<< HARD-DRIVE "B" >>
20 gigs, 7200 RPM
want to put Linux 7.0 SuSE on it
<><><> installation #1 <><><>
it took a whopping 4 1/2 - 5 hours of installation! i was not happy, in fact i was snoring at the keyboard. then when everything was installed i was first wowed at the coolness of the desktops to be chosen from, but all-in-all it seemed like nothing more than a convulated mess of programs that did not work, a few programs (not that many) that froze up the SuSE OS, or i was not able to kill them off. worse, i could not get a grasp of where i was within the OS, thanks goes to Microsoft for pacifiying me to the point of turning me into a seemingly computer illiterate. boy, do i have a lot to learn.
<><><> installation #2 <><><>
this time i reinstalled the SuSE OS, but only installed the minimum configuration, that would give me the StarOffice 2.5 and a miriad of other tools. wrong! StarOffice 2.5 was installed, but i didn't have the Bluefish HTML editor to work, nor the Kwanta to use with CSS and JavaScript. so, i tried to install "new" packages, but that turned out to be a mess because of something the system was saying about my partitions not having enough space and my mount points being incorrect. for this, so far, i have to say Microsoft has the upper hand by a long shot.
<><><> installation #3 <><><>
have not installed it again. this time i am thinking about installing the full thing again, then trying to uninstall the packages i don't need, until i have an OS that i feel comfortable with and that has the things i want and need. I couldn't even find the Apache Server that was installed the first time, so getting it set up properly is a main priority. i would really like to get the PHP environment set up, and would definitely tell ASP to kiss my ass good-bye if i could do so. yes, i still think PHP syntax doesn't look as pretty as ASP, but i am beginning to realize the power of PHP and the Linux environment versus ASP and the Microsoft environment, especially that ASP is NOT cross-server compliant.

<<< questions >>>
** does anyone out there feel comfortable working with the SuSE OS? i sort of know how to navigate from the command line in the Unix/Linux environment, took a Unix class where we worked with the Unix SVR4 and used the RedHat 5.2 book.

** at this point i do not have a second machine, so is there still any real advantage of setting up more than one "user" account for myself and such?

** do most ISP's already have compatibility with PHP, or must you convince them to set their servers up to support this? are there any free web providers out there that are PHP compliant? i found most ISP's not compliant with ASP, and they won't want to be. even worse, they did not want to grant their users access to the FSO (File System Object) component or let them use the CDONTS component, which pretty much made ASP half its worth.

** this one is very important to me. are there any free internet providers out there that allow their users to connect to their servers with Linux or Unix clients? i have a free internet account with www.bluelight.com, but can not connect to their servers because their servers can not authorize me. this is because i don't have their software (an attachment to the IE or Netscape browser) installed, but i can't install that software from their cd in the SuSE environment, which makes me think the software was written for the Windows environment. is that correct, or am i more computer illiterate than i thought?

Thanks, guys and gals for your help.

Thomas
ICQ# 26711769
ukhoops@icqmail.com

Anon

so far it doesn't seem that the most popular databases
out there are supported in such an environment.
can PHP connect to Access '97

What do desktop databases have to do with anything in this context?
PHP has built-in support for all the common database servers, starting
with MySql and ranging all the way up to Oracle, including SQL Server
if you're stuck with that.

Sorry about your troubles with SuSe; I've had nothing but good luck
(flawless installs and trouble-free operation) with several iterations
of Red Hat, so I don't mind recommending that to others and I
certainly have no intention of switching...

at this point i do not have a second machine, so is there still any
real advantage of setting up more than one "user" account for myself
and such?

Depends on what you mean by "user". You definitely should set up
one regular, non-root account for yourself to use, so that you don't
run as root all the time.

do most ISP's already have compatibility with PHP, or must you
convince them to set their servers up to support this?

Lots of them do, so there's no need to convince anyone to do it if
they don't want to--just find another provider. php.net probably
has a list somewhere.

Anon

I think I'll like to contribute something here. I have to say that a year ago I've been an ardent NT+ASP supporter. My solutions for my company was all ASP based.

Since then I've come to appreciate the power of Unix/Linux using PHP

just check out my website: www.scifiasia.com. the whole site is php driven using templates and run off a mysql db. this is my pet project.

I can only conclude that PHP is definately more powerful and flexible than ASP ever could be. It's undoubtedly faster too! Believe me after 2 years of using ASP and 1 year (so far) in using PHP. I have nothing but praise for PHP.

With regards to the Linux installations, yes I have to say it was quite daunting for Windows based people to grasp. But I managed it by lots of reading and trial & error. And there's plenty of helpful tutorials on the net!

I've just recently reached a milestone by successfully installing RedHat Linux 7.0 and compiling apache with PHP4.0 and MySQL. I can honestly tell you, a whole new world of web-development has just opened up to me.

I would suggest you keep trying and ask for help when u get into trouble from people here in phpbuilder.com. Just remember, any problems you face, someone somewhere has already solved it.

If you ask me now, I would think twice about using NT+ASP solution over Linux/PHP solution!

Leslie

Anon

well, you guys and gals are doing one heck of a job of selling PHP to me. isn't it funny, or rather ironic, that i was having one of those inner-conversations a while ago about how the tradeoff between using a Microsoft product and an open source product? you can either have everything point-and-click AND be limited to what the developer chooses to give to you, OR you can learn to run the show yourself and reap all the benefits from having full resources at your disposal. at times i am not sure, but right now i really feel like PHP and Linux are the way to go. Microsoft, read my lips. ki my a !

thomas

Anon

Microsoft, read my lips. ki my a

Personally, I wouldn't recommend letting them get that close... :-)

Anon

Only if they buy 14 licences and sign a non-dispclosure agreement. :-)

Anon

I have to say that by far the biggest advantage in my mind of PHP over ASP is in it's portability. I can code a page in PHP and have it work on a Linux box, on and NT Server, etc. Whereas with ASP I am completely stuck with a Windows NT Machine. Yes I know that there are ASP extensions available for apache, however even when they work correctly, you can't always take a page directly from an NT server and throw it on a linux box and expect it to work without major modifications.

Anon

guys, i got it to work! i kept typing in http://localhost, but it was supposed to be http://'myMachineName'...that did the job...now i see that all you have to do is throw the php file in your 'www' root, like one of you people was saying...yesterday i did have to do something in the registry....which gave me sweaty palms...the last thing i need is to accidentally sneeze and hit the delete key twice...not very likely, i know....but, if you knew me you would say "very likely" 🙂 well, i missed class today, but i kinda' feel like it was worth it already....at least now i can have a shot at learning PHP...

Anon

I thought I would mention that I HAVE installed php on windows 98 and 2000 Server, and it was so simple! You just run the installer wizard, click next a few times, and it works. It is truly amazing how easy it is.

Victor
vmz2@cornell.edu

Anon

I actually went to college for ASP when I was 17 (I am 19 now) and I am blown away about how easy PHP is! It takes 5-7 lines of decent coding to be able to connect to a {small voice} Access database. But with PHP there is 2-3 lines. WoW thats some difference. I do have a question though for all my Math buffs out there. What is faster of a database and language? Assuming they are on the same server with the same clockrates and speed. What is faster??? PHP with MySQL or ASP with Access? What is faster... ASP or PHP? What is faster...Access or MySQL? Thats something I really need to know. Or well would really like to know. I do however need a site or somewhere that says it. Like a website would be helpful. Thanks!
Chad R. Smith

Anon

Hi!

There's an article out there often referred to when comparing ASP and PHP. ASP is ctitisized to bits and pieces in it.

The best way to make sure is still make the most efficient configuration of both PHP and ASP and use only the most common functions, for example Left, Mid and Right in ASP and substr() in PHP. This will give you a fair comparison of speeds.
The cons against ASP is that it is fully object-oriented, even the Response is an object which has its own methods like Write. PHP, on the other hand, makes direct calls to stdout in this case.
The speed of ASP may sometimes be a bit better for very large scripts because they are compiled before execution. Use PHP Encoder, Optimizer and Cache in order to make such PHP scripts beat ASP in speed.

As to Access vs MySQL, Access is no match. Generally, you shouldn't be comparing MySQL with Access because Access is generally a desktop database engine. I saw real-life benchmarks on one site and MySQL beats SQL Server and Oracle there by 10-20%. Access is about 3 times as slow as MySQL.

Of course, MySQL still does not support some things Oracle and SQL Server are well known for - row-level locking, transactions, etc. Row-level locking has been introduced in MySQL 4 which is in beta.

Hope this has helped,
Best,
Stas

Anon

Awwsome thanks buddy! I will pass that along to everyone I meet. You helped me out a bunch. Also PHP is better because there are more people that can help you with it (AS I GET ALL THE TIME). Thanks again!
Chad R. Smith
President of Designcmc
www.designcmc.com

malsdavis

PHP hard to set up
ASP easy to set up

I recently setup PHP on a Win2K box, it was simply a matter of downloading the file the self installing .exe and running it and following the usual windows install sequence of choosing folder to install to etc. the whole setup took about 10 minutes, php scripts than ran straight away.

This was a lot easier then when I tried to install ASP/PWS on my Windows 98 machine at home, which seemed to install ok but then took me about 4 hours of installing & uninstalling windows components & then rebooting and then trying again to actually get a script to run.

Although I'm sure I did something wrong with the ASP install, I did still find the PHP install about 3 hours 50 quicker than the ASP one.

Anon

Coming from an ASP/SQL server & COM background, I think PHP has a lot to offer.

At present I have setup Apache 2 and PHP 4 on Windows 2000 Pro with MSSMTP and remote connection to MS SQL Server. Having performed numerous installations of IIS in the past 4 years, I would say that PHP installation on a windows platform is easy, whilst configuration of PHP is slightly harder, but achievable. There is a lot of documentation and help out there. I didn't find the PHP documentation very helful when it came to configuring the PHP4 filter with Apache 2. But with help from this forum I managed to get it working. Ta.

I am interested in seeing if Apache & PHP can be used as a replacement to IIS & ASP, but still using the same OS and databases, etc... For me, installation and configuration of a linux server would be a very high learning curve, hence the need for the windows platform.

My views so far...
Apache 2 is stable - haven't had a problem yet! IIS/inetinfo can sometime set CPU to 100% for a long time if someone writes bad ASP code. This doesn't seem to be a problem with Apache.
Connection to MSSQL seems good, I can still run stored procedures 🙂
Email is every bit as good as ASP, as I can access the CDONTS object 🙂
Form handling is easy 🙂

I am beginning to like PHP, but I still have my doubts. What will happen to PHP when more people use .NET? I understand that PHP has .NET modules, but these are only experimental with very little documentation.

Is there a PHP wishlist?