Thread

Hello fellow CI developers.

I’ve heard so much about the .net-technology but never realized how cool it looks… and simple! So today I started watching a few video screencasts and I can say that I’m 100 % sold. It looks so sleek and simple that I’d like to start out right now! Right now I’m developing my websites using PHP5 and MySQL as my database, but I’d like to know other languages better than just PHP. So what I’m trying to say is - would ASP.NET be a good language to start on? I’ve read that you can build apps, websites and all that stuff.

Any pros and cons? Would there be a better language to start off with? Thanks a bunch! 😊

AST.net is not a better language. It’s a wrapper for VBScript (a bastardised stripped down version of Visual Basic which is already a nightmare of bad syntax and strange function naming) and JScript (a language so close to PHP syntax it doesn’t really could as a new one to learn).

There are lots of handy tools in ASP.net development but the support, documentation and communities are mostly terrible. That, and it is created by a corporation and not by the people. That means development is slow, originality is rare and generally there is not as much support.

Combine that with your code only being able to run on IIS machines and you have discovered why most people avoid ASP.net whenever they have the choice.

Learn Ruby on Rails or Python. Python will be a damn good choice as it will let you code for the web - as well as *nix terminal & desktop apps - in a very easy way.

Well, okay, I’ve just read that .NET is the future and big firms are hiring .NET developers for their websites. About the hosting I know a good solid, danish, host for .NET technology as well as other languages. So I guess that problem is solved?

Ruby on Rails seems to be over hyped.. what’s so great about it, I can’t see the point. 😊

In my day job I use mostly C#.NET and ASP.NET, for the stuff we do its great since we have the resources to use it. The best thing is you get to use a proper programming language, namespaces, strong typed etc etc.

But for my personal websites I still used PHP because it is well supported by the community. I do get annoyed now and again with PHP and how it dosn’t offer what a compiled language does, but then I get all the user libraries and don’t have to piss around with IIS permissions (which I hate the guts of).

Tbh it depends on what you are doing. If you are doing webdesign for fun or doing small time web development go with PHP or a similar language. If its so you can get a job at a largish web company developing for enterprise sites learn ASP.NET.

I just threw that one out there as an option. I have personally never bothered with RoR and very much doubt I ever will.

I’ve just read that .NET is the future and big firms are hiring .NET developers for their websites.

Was this article 10-15 years old by any chance?

I just threw that one out there as an option. I have personally never bothered with RoR and very much doubt I ever will.

I’ve just read that .NET is the future and big firms are hiring .NET developers for their websites.

Was this article 10-15 years old by any chance?

Nah, not 10-15 years old, lol.

—-

It’s mainly because I’m building bigger apps (communities, portals) and not only portfolio/blogs/whatever. So yes, I heard ASP.NET would be better on bigger apps. Like e.g. say I’m building up a 2D, 3D or isometric virtual chat, ASP.NET would be a lot better as a backend than PHP would be.

What utter tosh and nonsense. Yeah go and learn asp.net as it’ll broaden your horizons and mean that you have a better skillset, there is nothing wrong with that and i’d actively encourage it, but don’t try and say that asp.net is better than php because of xyz. PHP can do most stuff asp.net can and the concept that php is good for small stuff and asp.net is for big stuff is ridiculous. What powers facebook? It’s not asp.net! What do yahoo use for a lot of their stuff? I’ll give you 2 guesses and a clue, it’s not asp.net.

Go learn asp and have fun, but don’t be fooled by anyone telling you that it is better than php, it is just another language that runs on a different platform. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh and by the way, Micro$oft are apparently building native support for php into visual studio. What does that tell you?

And finally, if you have a look at job sites, the massively increasing trend in what code discipline is being requested by companies of any size is…..php. not .net…...

The reason I said if your going to make enterprise applications learn ASP.NET is it will teach you proper programming not scripting as so many people do with PHP. There are exceptions but they are few and far between and most likely have had a good background in proper programming and understand the programming principles of good software design.

I’m fully aware that not every website on the internet is run on ASP.NET, and they are not run solely by PHP either, python, asp.net, c/c++, php, java can all run together to make a website and people like Google do exactly this.

The only advice I can give is do try both but I will promise you something, after trying C# coming back to PHP will seem like a backwards step. If only C# would run like it does in ASP.NET but not on IIS, that truly would be amazing :D

.NET truly is a great skill to have, especially if you intend to get involved in large enterprise work (government, etc). Personally, I love C# - but not for web development.

Biggest downfall when it comes to .NET: hosting costs. The license for Windows Server (which is what any good Windows-based hosting platform will be running) is outrageous, scaling out is a much more expensive endeavor so you will most often scale up instead. Jeff Atwood just wrote a post in regards to this actually.

ASP.NET is only the template engine for the .NET framework. The framework is more than a language specific web framework. The framework is mix of compilers, runtimes and libraries making it easier to write maintainable code. The dynamic language runtime for example that makes it possible to port dynamic languages to work with the framework, for example Python and Ruby.

You have the .NET library but there also is Mono that makes the .NET framework OS independent. It even has a few php ports. 

If you want to dive into the .NET world you have to do much learning because the easy samples are just the top of the iceberg. If you want to learn a language go with C or java, then you don’t need to learn a framework alongside it.

Well, I’m saying ASP.NET is better than PHP, but yeah, it justs looks cool and fun, although I must admit I think the syntax sucks, yup, it does - C# (best syntax of those three) and VS too. I remember that I one time read you’re not one of the cool kids if you’re using ASP.NET, lol, because you’re coding your app from scratch like e.g say in PHP where you actually do code your app from scratch. But hey, I’d only use ASP.NET if I wanted or I was being hired to code a huge app. Of course PHP will be my favorite language of all time.

Now I’ve been mentioned Python, that would be better? I just want to develope my knowledge, that’s all. 😊

Edit: I’ve been thinking about Java too, because I already have done some Java few months ago, where I developed a game server. 😊

Now I’ve been mentioned Python, that would be better? I just want to develope my knowledge, that’s all. 😊

One vote from me to Python.. You can use it for almost anything(3D, Utilities, Games, Web etc). Nice language all the way. And while you are having fun with it, test python framework called Django. You’ll gonna love it 😊 I dont know why, but I got the same feeling from CI and Django: easy, understandable and great documentation(besides the actual doc, Django book is great reading).

Awesome. I didn’t know you could make games with Python, I really need to check this out! 😊

Edit: Is it me or are their any python powered websites at all - atm?

Reddit is built on python, also Google App engine uses python (I think)

Yeah google app engine uses Python. I downloaded the SDK when it came to beta testing but never really had the time to REALLY use it for more than a couple of tests.. For a showcase of Django/Python sites check out http://www.djangosites.org/