php vs asp

What scripting language do you recommend learning first, or wich one do you like better, php or asp?
I am trying to decide which should I start learning first.

Thanks

johnnymier,

You can look at this link (http://php.weblogs.com/php_vs_asp) and the rest of the links inside like (http://php.weblogs.com/php_asp_7_reasons).

Bye.

I think as a first language PHP would be your better bet. You're going to find a lot more support, especially if you decide to utilize anything that's open source. I find that the PHP community is a lot larger and there are forums everywhere to help you with any problems you may incounter. The open source community is growing and if you're looking at the cost of scripts or whatnot for PHP, you're going to find that most of what you'll need or want will be free compared to ASP.

Check out the links above...hopefully some ASP people will post a reply to the thread.

Well, Im not a web developer, but some of my ASP developer co-workers, think that most of the advanced code samples for php available on the web are canditates to win an obfuscated code contest. They think that php developers actively try to create the most confusing code possible,

I've programmed both in PHP and in ASP w/ VBScript (as ASP is really either done with Perl or VbScript, mostly vbscript). And I can safely say ASP is very obfuscated as there aren't functions to do everything like there are in PHP. For example, in PHP you can use the MySQL functions and such to connect to your MySQL database without having to create any database DSN on your system, to sent queries and to go through results quickly, whereas in ASP you have to create a DB object, use DSNs, and then create objects for the record sets that hold the SQL results. It is kind of rediculous, and annoying. I like how everything you want to do has a quick function call and you are done.

Just my opinion.

Regards,
Wizeman

Well, that is probably their problem then, all the more advanced code samples have lots of "shortcuts" for lack of a better word, and they just haven't learned about them all yet.

PHP is a little more advanced if you ask me, but like GG said, their are alot of PHP communities that can help you if any coding errors occur while working on scripts. I'm partial to PHP, but ASP isn't that bad. If I were to design a site however, I'd either use PHP or HTML/CSS. JMHO :)

Neither is really more advanced than the other. Both have their good and bad points as well.

It is easy enough to pick up asp, just remember that asp is not a language, it is the platform. With asp you can use any com enabled scripting language you have installed on the machine (vbscript and jscript by default). If you want perl just go get the win32 perl goodies from www.activestate.com. Asp is nice since you can use ado to talk to your databases (only 3 objects to learn....woo woo) and you can use the com objects installed on your machine and build more with vb, java, c++. If you use asp I'd highly reccomend you pick one of those and learn COM.

PHP is well....php. It's nice too.

http://www.sloppycode.net/aspphp/

wonderful analysis

Thanks everyone for your opinions and feedback. They have certainly cleared many of my doubts. Your links were helpful also.


thanks


johnny

I have a fair bit of experience with ASP (vbscript), it is not hard to learn, but it is hard to find somewhere that offers cheep hosting. It works well with SQL server but can be a bit buggy interacting with access.

As with anything else it is what you make of it in terms of coding style, so don't think of one as being harder to read than the other. Two of the most useful resources are the SQL books online and vbscript microsoft help files. don't think I can post them as I expect they are copyright.

As Juridian mentions the ado objects are usefull, if you have access to exchange mail server you can link that in also (webmail anyone?). Setting up the objects is not complicated and you should not let it put you off.

For developement you have IIS with most of the windows distribs, but make sure you restrict/block access from the internet to the machine you run it on or you can look foward to spending all of your spare time patching the damn thing.

Having said all that, I am keen on learning PHP when I have the time. The Apache/ MySQL combo is a highly tempting prospect.

Good luck with which ever,

WaveRebel