In Web Development - What ASP.net can do that PHP cannot do?

Question

Just thinking if it's necessary to learn ASP.net.

Also, which is faster to develop? If I learn ASP.net now..

I will be using one of those languages for my first Web Application.

thanks!

Solution 1

I think the best answer that CAN be given for this type of question is simply:

TRY BOTH AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

I have know devs that swear by PHP and others that swear by ASP.NET. There are also many that hate PHP but love ASP.NET.

Your question is VERY subjective, it cannot be answered properly unless you dive into more specific details, like "Does PHP do threading?" etc.

We cannot tell you what you will develop faster in, we don't know your skill level at grasping / using a new language, which is the assumption I have that you are new to both.

However since I am biased to PHP, I would recommend PHP to try with, but that is my opinion.

Solution 2

PHP is a scripting language. ASP.NET is a framework.

IMO the larger the project, the better ASP.NET will be.

Solution 3

ASP.NET can do threads, while PHP cannot. Honestly that's about it. Someone will come and nit-pick about some other complicated task that PHP can't do, but PHP is a pretty robust and dynamic language overall.

If you are starting now and have never done C# or VB development, I would do PHP instead. It's much easier to pick up and has far fewer rules compared to C#. Yes, it can lead to bad coding practices because it is so loose and open. However, the documentation is phenomenal and you'll be moving much more quickly than you would in ASP.NET with no C# or VB experience.

Solution 4

Talking just in terms of web development, there's probably not a lot you can't do with either language pretty equally.

Having used both languages for extensive web development, I've found that Asp.Net probably out-does it. The tooling support is better, has great documentation, all the stuff you need is now free and you can get up and running with it extremely quickly.

Like has been already said, it depends on whether you prefer a dynamic scripting language or a strongly-typed modular language. I'd suggest you start with PHP though as then you don't have to deal with more advanced Asp.net concepts like events, controls, viewstate, class libraries, etc. You can pick those things up easy enough once you've got to grips with the syntax and programming for the web.

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Comments

[Jakub]

Hard to say, I know some students out of college, that were pure MS taught and for them ASP.net was easier, it had a 'GUI' you could work with right from the start ;)

[Sudantha]

@Jakub lol ! they will take a life time to understand what is 'web development' is localy here also 'web development' is a buzz word ;)

[azkotoki]

"Yes, it can lead to bad coding practices": Remember that you can write FORTRAN in any language ;)

[Aries]

And here's a response by Brandon Savage regarding the article and benchmark used. brandonsavage.net/of-lies-damned-lies-and-benchmarks

[Spudley]

If you worry about PHP not being quick enough for a large site, remember that it powers Facebook. They've even written their own compiler for it - developers.facebook.com/blog/post/358 - and that compiler is open source so anyone can use it.

[Garv]

I am planning to do PHP with Codeigniter Framework.

[Dan Bechard]

This answer was great right up until the point you completely contradicted yourself by recommending PHP. Was it really that hard to leave your answer unbiased?

[EKanadily]

imho this answer is not OK because how much time you think need to try both? i mean really try both not just touch them...

[EKanadily]

true. remember that the vast majority of sites are small to medium.