Question regarding ASP.Net and PHP

[kimagurealex]

I have a little Java and C programming experience. Now, I want to learn some web application development and webpage development. Since ASP.Net and PHP are very popular now, I wonder which one I should learn? For ASP.net, I have a whole set of IDE from Microsoft and I have a C# book. For PHP, I find that it is extremetly fustrate and confuse to search for information since the web resources for PHP are way too massive and I don't know how to start my learning at all. But on the other hand, PHP is free and I know lots of companies are willing to utilitize PHP with their web service. By the way, I know nothing about HTML at all. So, what level of HTML knowledge is sufficient for me to learn PHP or ASP.net with C#?
Thanks for reading and excuse for my broken English

Alex

 

[Genx87]

Isnt .net also free provided you install the framework and IIS 5.1?
There are free development tools out there for .net. And some of them are really quite nice. It has been awhile since I did anything in .net but I can post the free dev tool I used when I get home. For being free it was damn nice.

 

[AFB]

PHP, and here is why:

a)It is free
b)It has a large community backing it(So does .NET)
c)You can dev on Windows, run on Linux or ... yeah
d)You aren't stuck on one platform
e)Many IDE's

 

[WobbleWobble]

What about ColdFusion? The developer server edition is free.

Seamless database access, many built-in functions, runs of multiple platforms, easier to use and learn.

But out of those choices, I like .NET better. I hate to be seen as a Microsoft fan but Microsoft's backing on a technology helps.

 

[Shazam]

If you care about software archtecture, then .NET is the way to go. Note that .NET also includes desktop functionality, so it's possible to create objects that are usable by both web and desktop clients.

As well, ASP.NET offers lots of scalability options.

Having a nice, consistent object model like what .NET offers is nice as well. Following the built in MVC architecture is also very nice, as it allows you to totally separate views from your logic.

 

[oog]

i think either of them would be fine. i think the trick is often figuring out how to generate the html you want with the server-side code. i use .net for work, and php for my own site. if i had the option, i would probably use .net for my own site since i am more proficient in building complex functionality with it. my hosting provider (and i think most cheap hosting providers) don't support .net though.

 

[WannaFly]

It really depends oh which you feel more comfortable with and what yo uwant to do and where you want to do it. As a previous poster said, I'm also fluent in ASP.NET but use PHP for my personal sites. I would say that PHP is definately harder to pick up then ASP.NET but ASP.NET can also be much more complicated then PHP, it all depends. So in short: look at each and pick one (or better, both!)

 

[stndn]

from a web development point of view, i'd recommend you to learn HTML first.
after that, think of which one (PHP/ASP) to pick (i'm leaning towards PHP probably because i have background in Perl and PHP).
For good reference website, go to w3schools

why learn HTML first? While you may be able to use PHP/ASP to get input and generate output without a single knowledge of HTML, you won't like the look and feel of the output you generated and might lose interest in learning them.

Plus, after designing a few static webpages and being able to control how they look like, etc., then you can figure out what PHP/ASP codes you want to take a look at and use in order to generate data to populate the design you have made.

In my case, i started learning PHP because i want to expand on my static HTML pages. Otherwise i might end up not learning PHP at all until now...

 

[kamper]

If you are looking at doing somewhat complicated web development (I assume you are if you're looking at asp.net) and already have some java experience why don't you give java web development a whirl? It's not the easiest thing in the world but it's fun and you already know the basics of the language...

 

[kimagurealex]

what is Java Web Development? Do u mean jsp?
Thanks

Alex

 

[kamper]

Well, that's where it starts. Servlets are also important. The interactions between servlets and jsps is a subject that can fill libraries. After that there's a countless number of other technologies that can make things "easier". It's a big world but, yes, I mean jsp.

 

[AFB]

Well, let me put it this way. When you make a JSP page, you write the page then you put it in the directory (You may need to add some config information). Then when you run it for the firdt time, the page is compiled into a servlet and the compiled like a java program. This only needs to be done once and can make you page pretty fast. For speed, I would take JSP/Servlets over PHP.