Upgrade an ASP site to...PHP vs Asp.Net? Is there any serious value in switching to PHP?

Question

Howdy all,
I wrote a site a few years back in ASP w/ a custom content management system. Since then I left the company, learned .Net, and haven't touched the site in ages.

The company is now looking to upgrade...but are considering PHP. I had always seen ASP and PHP as being quite similar, and being a lightyear behind .Net.

So what I'm curious about from the developers out there is, is there any advantage from moving from ASP to PHP? Or is this almost a personal preference, the equivalent of changing from C# to VB?

And given the option of moving from ASP to .Net or PHP, what would you do?

Answer 1

Going from ASP to .NET or PHP will require rewriting of code. It is is natural to think that you can convert ASP to .NET but .NET runs under a compiled environment whereas ASP is interpreted much like PHP so upgrading is not as trivial as one might think yet not that difficult either. Since the upgrade requires rewrite, I would go with .NET because you have experience with the technology and that means a better turnaround time (assuming you don't know PHP). Another thing to consider is the ability to find decent programmers for the technology that you employ at a rate the company can sustain. You'll have to see what your local market pool of talent comprises of to figure that out. Companies need to be able to find support should you or the next programmer move on. IMHO, the bulk of the decision depends on what talent pool you can procure and what you make of it. .NET and PHP are both good solutions. We know many sites out there run on PHP but did you know that MySpace is running on .NET?







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Answer 2

ASP and PHP can both do the same things. The APIs differ, as does the organization with ASP being more object oriented. Their are no advantages, but it's a lot more complex than choosing C# over VB.Net. I use both (VB and C#) at work, because I prefer C# but for projects where I work with people they prefer VB. The syntax differs, but the API we target (.Net Framework) stays the same. Moving over to PHP is going to mean reinventing whatever wheels you've made. It seems unnecessary, I would stick with ASP, especially with the exciting enhancements being offered in Visual Studio 2008.

Answer 3

ASP and PHP are in fact quite dissimilar; ASP and ASP.Net have much more in common with each other than either of them does with PHP. As to PHP being "a lightyear behind .Net", I really don't see it that way; PHP was originally developed for Unix systems, and Windows (including .Net) has a long way to catch up to Unix in terms of performance and reliability. Just think of the last time you did any socket programming in ASP/ASP.Net...



Is there any advantage from moving from ASP to PHP? Yes. You can implement your application on low-cost open-source stack (Linux / Apache / PHP / MySQL) and save a bundle on licenses compared to a Windows / IIS / ASP.Net / SQL Server implementation. Additionally, with PHP, you are not tied to Visual Studio as your IDE.



What would I do given the option of moving from ASP to .Net or PHP? Depends on what I am getting paid for... Upgrading from ASP to ASP.Net can be an incremental rewrite, while converting to PHP means rewriting from scratch. But before doing any rewriting, I would take a hard look at open-source content management systems, both PHP-driven (Drupal, Joomla!) and ASP.Net-driven (DotNetNuke)...

Answer 4

No, I don't see the advantage, other than saving a bit of cash in hosting. But I prefer PHP. By the way, why is .NET better than PHP? You can't compare PHP with .NET. .NET is an application framework (an environment for building and executing applications) not a programming language; it's like comparing a truck to a road. Both PHP and "Language.NET" are viable solutions for Web building.

Answer 5

The clients I have that want a non-Windows hosting environment seem to go with PHP - I've always thought that was the reason. I'm a fan of .Net, so I'll always pick that over anything...

Answer 6

open source tech is the best... choose PHP!