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Debate - .NET V. PHP: Top 10 .NET Myths Exposed
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9. But corporations don't like PHP.
Well apart from CBS, PHP is used on the corporate sites of Japan's NTT DoCoMo, Switzerland's Bluewin, and a whole load more you'll find here. You frequently wont realise when you're viewing a PHP-based site, because you're not forced to use the default .php file extension (PHP often appears as .shtml or phtml).
Also, have a look at the results of this job search -- not bad.
And as ezPublish demonstrates, corporations aren't just using PHP, companies like Siemens are prepared to go into partnership to sell PHP applications to their customers.
10. PHP is doomed!
This is doubtful. In fact in June 2002, PHP overtook ASP to become the first Open Source project to start from behind, and become more popular than the bespoke Microsoft solution. With IIS going into decline against Apache as a result of the Apache 2.0 release and IIS's poor security record, the gap will only widen.
The .NET framework has only one real edge over PHP, which won't be making itself apparent for a long time yet: with .NET, you can write an application that will run natively on Windows clients and is delivered from a Website. Microsoft has a long way to go with security before it will be able to unleash that on the Internet -- and even when that time comes, browsers and content delivery may be sufficiently advanced to make it irrelevant.
PHP is successful in its own right and in fact is in no way "threatened" by .NET. As to why, your guess is as good as mine, but top of the list might be:
- its down-to-earth approach to problem solving (PHP has without doubt introduced to programming people who would never have thought themselves capable before),
- its active and inspired community,
- its comprehensive and efficient documentation (try this link for example: http://www.php.net/mysql), and
- the freedom you have as a developer, both in terms of price and choice of code architecture, to do with PHP as you please.
Microsoft would do well to learn some lessons here. PHP.NET would be a start but at the moment Microsoft seems to be ignoring the Internet's #1 scripting language.
Business as Usual
So there's a little ammunition for harassed PHP developers. In summary, although .NET has some interesting features, there's no pressing reason to switch to developing in it. Right now, in terms of web development, Language.NET really only amounts to ASP version 4.0 (with an option of writing in C++ style C#).
If you're considering Language.NET, it's worth asking yourself three questions;
- "Is there anything here I'm not already doing or capable of doing?"
- "Do I want to be forced into a sharp learning curve, a particular coding style and particular strategies for Web development?"
- "Do I feel like paying more for hosting?"
In answering those questions, you'll have a pretty clear idea whether .NET applies to you. And rest assured you're not "missing out" if you decide it's not your kettle of fish.
Having said all that, .NET framework is an interesting technology. It incorporates some great concepts, such as multiple language support and has potential for seamlessly integrating the various Microsoft product families. It's also good that .NET promotes XML standards like XML-RPC and SOAP, which have tremendous potential for the Internet and until recently, have been largely ignored, although XML-RPC has been around since 1999. But there's a long way to go though before .NET is truly a pervasive technology -- and the real showdown for the hearts and minds of developers is not "PHP vs. .NET" but J2EE vs. .NET, which is best left to another article.
All in all, we can now get back to business as usual, while thanking Microsoft for the diversion.
Hear both side ot the argument! Find out why the opposition thinks .NET is superior, and make up your own mind!