Asp Or Php - Choosing A Programming Language For Your Web Design

Nowadays when it comes to web design and development, you have a lot of choices as to what you can use. Most of the methods you can use involve embedding code into HTML pages using special tags. This code is then run on a server which returns the content which becomes part of the HTML page seen on a web browser. PHP and ASP are two programming languages that are capable of helping you develop web content this way. ASP.NET was developed by Microsoft while PHP is an open source language that Oracle has chosen to use in its products.

Each language has its strengths and weaknesses. We will cover the pros and cons of both languages so you can easier decide which one you might use for a particular project.

ASP.NET is a complete framework for building web applications. It is compatible with scripting languages such as Perlscript, Jscript, Python and VBScript and also works with compiled languages such as C, C#, Cobol, VB, Smalltalk and Lisp. The final language is complied and then executed with CLR(common language runtime).

The strength of ASP.NET is its language flexibility and its sophisticated object-orientated support. The development environment one can use while dealing with ASP.NET is vast. You can use everything from Webmatrix to Visual Studio.NET without having any problems getting things to work together. It is also easy to debug.

PHP is a scripting language that communicates with the web server. The web server recognizes the PHP script tags and executes the PHP command. It is similar to C, Java and Perl. Programmers that have worked with these languages have an easy time of picking up PHP.

PHP is a pretty good development tool but it does have its drawbacks. It has functions that are case sensitive which some programmers find to be extremely annoying. PHP was not designed to be object-orientated. Features for object-orientated programming were added later which can cause some problems.

Even with these drawbacks PHP is faster and more efficient than ASP.NET when in the hands of a skilled PHP programmer. The security within the two are about equal. Pricing is another thing to consider when comparing PHP and ASP.NET. PHP is free. ASP.NET is not. You are investing money from the start when you chose to use ASP.NET and will continue to do so with add-on technologies.

Each language can work for you, but in the end it comes down to the preference of the developer and the project they are working on.

By: John McElborough

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John does Brighton web design for Bright Site. Find out more about the benefits of PHP vs ASP here