ASP or PHP (which to learn)

so i have just come across this site and it looks great, i hope someone here can help to shed some light in my dark tunnel .. i am progressing nicely with my web design, since starting out last week to make my first site i have managed to build a site that is of a good layout with the graphics being of a standard that i am happy with, at present .. however it has got to the stage where i feel that i need to learn about dynamic content to further develop my skills, (btw i am a computer science graduate who is keen to get into the web design business asap) this has lead me to a crossroads and i am not keen to rush into deciding my next path .. do i go with ASP and MS Access ..or do i go with PHP and mySQL .. i have been reading around the web and have found several topical debates, it seems that most like to go the PHP route but the reasoning is mostly anti-microsoft .. before, i was sure i would learn ASP but all this talk really is giving me second thoughts ..

for someone who has limited knowledge about databases is SQL a bit much?
is the fact that ASP source is private going to hinder my learning experience?
is ASP much more expensive than PHP?
what is most suitable for smaller databases less than 100 entries MS Access or SQL?
what is most suitable for beginners?
i have been using DWMX does either version integrate better than the other?
do the posts in the respective forums say anything about ASP(4,000) and PHP (15,000)

so far i have been playing with this site http://blgg.mysite.freeserve.com/ but next month i will be developing a similar site for "real", based on this draft, for my amateur football team .. i will need to have a database for the news articles and also one for the members to be listed upon, my main goal is to make a site where certain elements can be updated without direct html editing (eg players list and news articles). Ultimately i want to be able to show this site to web design firms for my CV to help get employed.

if anybody can offer me any advice on this subject i would be very grateful as this is a big decision for me and i want to make the best possible choice i can.

thanks in advance barry

Learn PHP.

PHP is the most popular server-side scripting language - more so than ASP, ColdFusion, Perl, etc.

PHP enjoys one of the most robust online communities of any programming language. This benefits you, because as you have questions about the language, finding documentation, examples, tutorials, and other developers to help you is much easier than with ASP.

You can download, install and use PHP on your PC today, free of charge. In fact, you can also download, install and use other applications commonly used with PHP for free as well - including Apache (which PHP runs on - Apache is the HTTPD application server which allows PHP to run), MySQL (an open source SQL database), among others. This is in stark contrast to the high costs you'll encounter using Microsoft products such as ASP, IIS (a closed-source competitor to Apache), MSSQL, etc.

Zend (the company that makes PHP) and Sun (the creator of Java) are currently working on a way to allow PHP access to Java/J2EE.

PHP's syntax is C-based; meaning, as you learn PHP, you better prepare yourself to learn other C-based languages, such as C/C++ (big surprise there, huh?); Java; Javascript; Perl; among others. This is a subtle advantage for developers who are self-taught.

interesting .. i think for my small first project i will try out ASP and Access and see how it goes .. i have experience although pretty limited with java which i am hoping to continue with and i am currently working my way through the latest deitel text so i think after i feel more comfortable with java i will come back and have a look at php .. but you never know if i get trouble i could be looking that way sooner than i first thought thnx for the input

hopefully i will be able to code forever .. nice sig

i am myself on my personal computer using winXP for this i can dl IIS then using Access which i also have i can test everything on my computer before upload which works nice for me .. however i am confused what measures i would have to take for MySQL and PHP .. would not be able to test anything till i uploaded to the seerver? if i install MySQL4 on my persoanl PC does that allow me to test it? i am sure i heard the code can change from os to os as the whole point in taking the SQL PHP option would be getting a nice cheap *nux server

if someone could just explaion how i would how sql and php would be set up on my server and my pc it would be a great help as when i have looked into this matter further, i have found myself starting to wander over to the php path .. php seems to have so much support its just i am clueless as to where to start with it.

Not at all. You can easily run PHP off of IIS, or you can install Apache as an alternative to IIS.

Similarly, you can easily run Apache, PHP, and MySQL right off of your Windows PC, test applications/scripts during development, and upload them to your server once you're done.

In addition to the points I illustrated before, another consideration is the TOC (total cost of ownership) of Apache/PHP/MySQL vs. IIS/ASP/MSSQL. Even from the perspective of a single developer, outsourcing web hosting to a 3rd party, you will still encounter the higher costs of using the Microsoft tools instead of Open Source (PHP et al). Monthly hosting fees for a Windows server running IIS/ASP/MSSQL will /always/ be more expensive to you than hosting fees on a server running Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP.

ok you got me .. if possible can you just give me some info what i need to do to get started

Apache, i understand this as being my test server/ or host if i host myself is this the right link for the software?? http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

MySQL, i need MySQL from this page http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-4.0.html
and i need it for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/2003, then i upload it to the linux server and it will work ok? really not sure what version to get?

PHP, i will be producing the PHP in DWMX so wont need any other software for this to work??

then i aim to purchase a good book that will help me produce the php in DWMX, i have already heard some suggestions but will look into it further .. anything else i should know? will this all work ok? *fingers crossed*!!!!

DWMX will help you *write* the PHP code, but it won't *run* it for you. For that, you'll need to download & install PHP from http://www.php.net/get/php-4.3.3-Wi...p/from/a/mirror

If you're looking for a good book on PHP, I highly recommend PHP and MySQL Web Development. It will teach you basically everything you need to know about PHP, MySQL, etc. If you have trouble installing, this book has step-by-step instructions for installing PHP/Apache on your PC.

Good luck! Post in the PHP forum if you have any questions (after searching through to see if the question has already been answered, of course )!

of course .. i amy still change my mind again back to ASP .. i got a week to think it over and access all the feedback ive got from different forums

Why not do both?

I programmed in ASP for about 2 years before learning PHP.

Personally, I find PHP's C-derived syntax to be easier to 'think in', so to speak. ASP is VB-derived, and I really never felt comfortable working with it.

You might really like programming in ASP. Its worth it to try both of them. I like programming in PHP far better, plus it has peripheral benefits (cost of ownership, open source, huge support community, etc). But first and foremost, its something I enjoy doing. The rest wouldn't be as important if the language was difficult or annoying to work with.

i think i would like to do that but one step at a time the reason i was set on ASP to start with was i knew i had the right software to do it and also it has lots of great extensions available for DWMX, where as PHP is better supported if you are coding it but to start with i just want to use some extension and get it all to work, then i can think about doing custom stuff with it after .. also there are plenty of good books for using ASP in DWMX which i feel would be my best way to learn.

its weird really because if one did the job better then it would make my life easier, i guess long term PHP is definately the way but for my small project my hosting would only be £40 a year so .. that ok for me either way thnx for the advice its good of you to take the time to give me some input .. let me ask you this, if you were at my stage but knew what you knew now would you have still started doing ASP? i know you like PHP but would you have grasped it as quick when you were at that original skill level? let me know your thoughts, put yourself in my shoes from a beginners point of view whats easiest one to get along with?

If you have never programmed anything before, you might like either one. ASP is usually written in vbscript, which many programmers don't really care for, but you might like it because I think its a bit easier to get some of the syntax at first. (Its kinda ugly syntax compared to some other languages, but pretty easy to get started). On the other hand, PHP syntax is kinda similar to C/C++, so if you've done any of that you might like php better. Additionally, if you are going to be learning a language on your own, PHP has a much larger support base and such on the net.
When it comes down to it, I would say learn PHP, because it is cheaper to find hosting, open source and thus free to obtain, and has much more support. (I learned ASP first, and am just beginning to look at PHP). ASP might be a bit more marketable at a big company at the moment, but thats shifting too. Whichever you pick will make learning the other quite simple though, so play with it a bit and go with what you like.

I started with ASP, because at the time I was working for a company which was using ASP, and I needed to learn it to do that part of my job.

Same thing w/ PHP, Java, ColdFusion, and the (very) little Perl I know - the initial learning of each of these were job-driven. However, I've stuck w/ PHP and Java as these are the languages I like the best.

If I knew then what I know now, I would never have bothered w/ ASP.