Re: PHP Vs ASP (passion)

This is rather separate from the PHP/ASP debate on technical grounds, but I thought I'd share it anyway. Something I've noticed a lot with PHP users/developers is that it's a choice. Once you've made the choice to download, compile, install and/or learn this platform, you get passionate about it. That passion *should* be encouraged, and larger companies that encourage this type of passion may also be encouraging lower turnover rates, higher loyalty/commitment to company goals, and other positives. To many people, a language is just a tool - obviously most of what we do in PHP can also be accomplished in CF, ASP, JSP, whatever. Setting aside cost, development ease, etc., they all can do primarily the same functions - take input, make decisions, store retrieve data, display results. Back to passion - I may be in the minority here, but I've not run across too many web developers who *enjoyed* using ASP. Many of the people I've worked with who use ASP do so out of the dictates of their boss, or because they can play up to a client's MS bias. ASP usage seems to be a result of politics, not passion. Many people I know who are top-notch ASP developers (dozens of large scale projects) don't really like it all that much, and would rather explore the possibilities of Java, or ColdFusion, or ModPerl. But it's easier for the company to say 'MS' without thinking about the long-term satisfaction of their workers. Obviously I'm not suggesting that all the 'suits' fall over and let the 'geeks' run the show. However, I firmly believe you get much better, stabler web applications from people using tools of their choice, which they've studied, understand and have mastered than from people forced into something they're not crazy about. Owen rephrased his question a few messages back, asking for reasons to move *to* PHP *from* something else. I wouldn't necessarily say 'move to PHP' - assess the current strengths and passions of your dev team. If you've got 5 dedicated NT guys who live/breathe VB, don't force them to PHP. Our personal passions here are more 'open source'-ish or 'free' tools. Whether it's PHP, Perl or Java, these are what we've demonstrated proficiency in. We're in the process of migrating someone from NT/ASP to Linux/PHP, based primarily on the dedication and passion we bring to the project. We were able to migrate about 70% of a large ordering system from ASP to PHP in about 2 weeks, making it faster and more flexible for growth at the same time. However, someone who knew nothing but VBScript could probably have done the same thing in ASP (faster, etc.). I'm getting a bit more off-topic than I wanted to, but I hope this gets my point across. :) ========================== Michael Kimsal http://www.tapinternet.com 734-480-9961 php-general@lists.php.net