Really? What did you work in?

I can teach you PHP if you like

On a sidenote, do you think ASP or PHP are more important? I know PHP, but I don't know if I need to learn ASP to get a job...

Sorry, had to split this as it is way OT!

I am currently using ASP in conjunction with VB COM objects and Microsoft SQL Server. We also do a little ASP.NET/VB.NET/VB6 apps.

Personally I think there is more interest in PHP, as the hosting is so much cheaper, and it's easier to set up with PHP/MySQL than to get Windows hosting with SQL Server. I figure this makes it easier to pick up small jobs where hosting costs are an issue, if ever I chose to do freelance, or simply moonlight.

That said, Garf has previously said to me that ASP(.NET) is in demand in his, or his girlfriend's, neck of the woods.

It doesn't hurt to have both technologies under you belt though, which is part of the reason for my move. I figured being able to do both would stand me in good stead. I'm also hoping to get some C++, and maybe Java, training while I'm there.

I can never work out whether you are a programmer, a graphic designer, or an audio engineer...

I don't get why someone would want to use ASP, when PHP is multiplatform and open source. Is any technicall advantage on using ASP? Not that i know off.

Hehehe... Here comes my life : I'm a graphic designer AND a programmer, and I compose music, write poetry, and (try to) master recordings.. All of this I do at home, with amateur-ish equipment (eg, the recording is done on a 10$ mic... )

I have 12 years of programming experience.. I started BASIC, then Pascal, at age 8. Learnt all there was about DOS and did some shell programming. Kept doing Pascal until I was eleven, then I started Java. I also started doing photoshop work at 11, on Photoshop 4 (I believe it was beta at the time)

At 12, I worked some HTML (more a markup language than programming, but whatever..) until I was 14 (while doing photoshop) , and at 14 I moved to France. I quit programming (except for web page design), and kept doing photoshop. I made a few sites in France, and a few graphic design contracts (3 web sites, and a CD box/jacket)
I came back to Canada at age 17, and learnt PHP, C++, C, and got up to scale on my Java that year. The whole pack of languages took me approx. 2 months, total, to learn. I nowdays still do Graphic design, and some programming work. I'm following both types of courses in University, though I hope to enter a full-time programme in G.D instead of C.S. I'm accepted in the latter, but not (yet?) in the former.

Oh yeah, and my first language is French

Because, at corporations, it's the managers that decide, not the engineers. Therefore, the place I work at has (and countless others) standardized on Windows Server, IIS and ASP for dynamic web pages. No amount of whining from engineers will change the situation.

So, yes, for someone looking for a job - a secure one, at least - I would recommend learning ASP and SQL Server.

i allways wondered what does managers get in return ... i still remember one that bought a lot of Tandy (do you remember them?) laptos ... and he got one as a gift ... anyway, it could be a matter of showing IIS cost, vs linux/apache cost, isnt it?

The company I work for has Microsoft Gold Partner status. That can open doors I guess.

My boss is a total Microsoft freak. As Roberto says, you just have to go with the tools your company wants to use.

I've always been interested in the dark side though. I'm glad to be getting an opportunity to get some experience with Unix, PHP, Postgre; and maybe Java and C++. As I say, I think it will be useful if I need to go freelance in the future.

I can't really say how ASP would be better than PHP. I've never seen a speed comparison, although I expect one is better in some areas and one in others. ASP.NET would have some advantages, but we aren't using it as we should. I'm not really sure I like the managed way that ASP.NET works anyway; it seems that you are dictated to more than I like. ASP/PHP and XHTML/CSS allows you total control over a webpage.

Edit: As well as the expensive hosting for ASP/SQL Server, another downside to ASP is the need to purchase COM objects to do simple things like upload files, manipulate images, zip up files, send email, etc. - all things that are part of PHP and all things that every site I have written requires! We generally host our sites on our own servers so you know the components you have at your disposal, but, for example, some work I did for a friend meant having to use different components, and my webspace uses yet different components. No major deal, but it's all more work, and when considering hosting, more expense.

I'd rather do it in python. But I must admit that PHP has a really big function set for you.

@Synthetic Soul :

Actually, I was wondering why you chose ASP over PHP for your personal server... How complicated/easy is ASP, compared to other languages? Can anyone make an analogy in programming terms?

I chose ASP for my personal website because that it the language I am currently familiar with. The server is PHP-ready I believe, so my site may be PHP by June, especially if I can access a MySQL database.

I think, in essence, you are a programmer, and the language you use is not particularly relevant. My friend believes that I will be proficient in PHP in two weeks. He used PHP before he came to work at my present employer, and picked ASP up as he went along. He was able to do this because he does not think syntactically, but logically. Apparently he has faith in me doing the same.

I suppose one thing to note is that ASP can be written in JScript or VBScript, so if you are more familiar with C-type syntax then you could write ASP using JScript. I think every example I have seen outside of the Windows Script help file is in VBScript though.

As you have experience with BASIC VBScript should be a doddle.

I don't think there is a lot of difference between ASP and PHP, apart from the BASIC/C syntax.

Most of my experience is with VB, so I think the syntax is easier. However, maybe someone more experienced in C would say the other way around. A chap who was on my MCSD course with me was there to learn VB.NET. He ended up getting a job using C#, and said that the syntax seemed more logical than VB.NET. There are definately aspects of PHP (/Javascript/C/etc.) that are better, e.g.:

ASP


PHP



Of course you could do:

I started reading up a bit on the debate...
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/hull_asp.html

This article also says that PHP is faster.

Tell me, what languages should I learn in order to be a marketable programmer, and do I need a diploma in computer science to do so?

Should I learn VB.NET? C#? Haskell / Ruby / Python / Perl / Lisp?

ASP?

I personally can't answer that, I don't have the experience. I suspect that it is relative to your location in part.

Here is one thread that may be of interest, and here is another.

Obviously it depends whether you are looking for web work (ASP/PHP/JSP/CFM/ASP.NET in a multitude of languages, including most of those you list/etc.) or application programming (C++/.NET/Delphi/etc.). In commercial applications I would suspect C++ and/or C# to be a good bet.

I find it difficult to know what the future is with .NET. You can see it becoming more apparent just on this forum. Of course we now have XAML/WinFX/etc. on the way (XP to some degree, and Vista), so who knows where that will lead us. The XAML thing looks cool though: I went to a Vista/WinFX briefing at Microsoft a while back, and saw some cool examples using WPF and WCF.

NB: I'm sure I could fine a Microsoft article that sees ASP.NET faster than PHP. That article is written by an open source freak. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I would prefer to see more proof. ASP.NET is compiled code, while PHP is interpreted; I'm sure that must factor somehow. Maybe not.

Edit: LOL. I just searched for "ASP.NET PHP speed" and your article was the first result. The second result was this opposing argument.

Free lunches, trips to resorts, blowjobs, a free snort...



Not really. The company I work at uses Microsoft because of support, if they cared about price only they would probably have at least started to migrate to Linux. With Windows/Office/IIS, they give a phone call and hours later a microsoft technician is there to fix whatever is broken. If he doesn't fix it, he'll pay penality fees. While similar setups are being created for Linux support, noone comes close to Microsoft in professionalism.

I just thought I best clarify that the "VB COM objects" I speak of are our own. We use SQL Server for the data tier, COM for the business, and ASP/XHTML/CSS for the presentation.

The 3rd party COM objects that I subsequently referred to are generally written in C++.

Using COM for our business layer has pros and cons though. It's a pain to have to recompile and also deployment becomes more complicated, especially as we stupidly have the live and staging sites running on the same server. Dumbass hosting department. I don't think I'll be sad to go back to using server-side code for the business layer.

In your article, I found this : http://www.pzycoman.myby.co.uk/lspeed.html

That seems more realistic, somehow. Though maybe unfair... since it's only comparing on string comparisons (and with php4?)

That is quite intriguing.

I doubt PHP runs as well on IIS as on Apache... that's a complete assumption though.

Impressive stats none the less. Not comprehensive, but impressive.

I am slightly reticent to be moving away from the .NET thing, but I'm not getting to use it here anyway, so I guess I'm not losing anything. I have an MCSD in VB.NET, but since I gained the qualification, over 3.5 years ago, I have spent less than one working week programming with .NET.

I don't want to stop application programming. I need to either learn C++ or work on .NET on my own time at home. Maybe when I've settled in a bit...

I don't see why those are advantages. I mean, when you're doing a website, you have a free choice of tools. If you want ASP, get Microsoft boxes. If you want PHP, get Unix boxes.

Note that Unix boxes with an "Enterprise" distribution (RHEL or whatever) generally ask the same kind of premium as Windows boxes do. There isn't really any price advantage there.

Open source: are you going to fix bugs in the PHP code or extend components? I don't think so! If you have to go improve the tools you chose to get the job done, you've probably chosen the wrong tools.

I'd care more about code maintainability, existance of good development environments, support, availability of libraries.

I only know PHP myself, and I'm happy with it. It's ugly at places, it's slow, but it works, its easy to make something quickly and there is a huge amount of code out there. From what I've seen of ASP, it forces "order" in the projects a bit more. I do think that's a good thing; the largest temptation a programmer has is to hack up something. I believe this forum itself is a prime example of how things should not work

I've been programming in Java more lately, but JSP and consorts seem incredibly complex, so I haven't gone that route yet.

its and advantage cause you can start in wintel box, if need to go to linux you just move there, if need to move to aix, you just move there, need to use BSD? Solaris? MacOS? etc, etc ... if you go ASP route, you just stick with MS ...


linux OS can allways be cheaper than Windows. You don't need RHEL, you can bo with whitebox linux, or CentOS, Etc. We have bought Windows licenses many times, we have corporate agreements. Still, MS support sucks. We get many times "its a feature", or "we would think about it". With Linux, we go and just fix it.


Maybe not myself, but someone on our *nix department.


we agree in that one. That is why i asked about any advantages of ASP over PHP, which i think there are not.


i have been planing on moving to java also for a while. We could then share experiences Any book recommendation?

Java 1.5 Tiger, a Developper's notebook, by O'reilly Press.

Riiiiiiight. I don't think so. But if you want to prove me wrong, rewrite the eth1000 driver in the mainline linux 2.6 kernel. It became unstable recently in the stable series, it's a known issue, and it's not being fixed. Since this is a massively popular card for servers, you'll not only do me but thousands of people a favor.

"Just go and fix it" is an illusion. I'd take properly written closed source software over open source software I have to fix myself any day.

Choosing software on the reason that "if it's broken, I can fix it" is not an approach that scales unless you're a student living with your parents, or something. I think there are much better reasons to prefer or disprefer something. Like whether it works



Hiring staff to fix other companies/people's bugs. Sounds lovely.



IMHO ASP has a better design and encourages you to write proper code & seperation of content and layout much more. I think this is important, specifically if you have to work in teams. It's one reason why I like Java , too.



I have many books to recommend but none about JSP

The price of the OS itself it the least concern for a company worth millions (or billions, like the place I work and the place you work) of dollars.

What these guys really want is the priceless peace of mind of knowing there are people out there that will fix your setup in a heartbeat if you need. It's no use saving a few hundreds of dollars in each OS license and later lose millions of dollars because of downtime issues.

Sure, CentOS is cool and enterprise-oriented, but how can you be sure you'll find a professional to take care of it in a timely manner when it blows? Windows professionals abound, both Microsoft employees or people with certifications.