Development Picking a language for a dynamic website

I'm in the planning stages of a web project - basically a blog for a relatively small group of people (probably up to around 50), with dynamically created bar charts based on user data. It's a mental health site, with the barcharts showing mood over time.

As I seem to have totally forgotten all the PHP I used to know, I'm looking to learn a language from scratch for this project, although PHP is still an option.

What suitable languages do you think I should be looking into, bearing in mind that I do have some programming experience, even if I have forgotten most of it!

 

Well PHP can generate graphics (including bar graphs) on the fly using the GD Library.

I'm pretty certain that ASP can't do that, at least not out of the box.

Otherwise it's not really a big deal what you go for, I'm sure it's just as easy to make a blog in PHP/MySQL as it is in ASP/Access.

Good luck

Sam

 

JpGraph for PHP

 

.NET - C#

Once you go C#..you dont go back..trust me. I know java devs who tried C# and now swears by it.

The one thing the php and java folk seem to think about c# is that its another replica of Java. It's NOT. For web programming, C# beats php/java servlets in terms of performance and RAD (rapid dev).

I love .NET because of the built in web controls like Repeaters, Literals, Labels and the clean integration of code and design. .NET is TRUE object oriented and you can compile ALL your webpages into a DLL (yes webpages).

Read about the .NET Repeater web control....once you know the mechanics..youll never use any other language again.

 

JSP is terrible, it is slow and resource intensive... I would def say go either .NET or PHP.

PHP5 is very impressive and has full OO support amongst other things so don't let that sway you.

Both PHP and .NET are powerful languages, and IMO neither of them is particularly better than the other. With so little to chose between them I think it really depends on your budget. If you are going to go .NET you are going to need to run it on a Windows platform which is going to cost more whether you are running the server yourself or buying hosting. (I know there is the MONO project, but it is far from ready!!)

 

Dont mean to start a flame war here but I have done an extensive comparision between PHP....Net beats PHP in every single thing except that it doesnt run on linux (mono doesnt count).

BTW...Hosting is great for .net. A dedicated server can be done at $80 USD and shared hosting can be done for LESS than $8.

 

I'm going to have to say PHP.
I think the difference that people see between .net and php is that most newcomers to web developing choose php becuase it's a easy and quick language, this has given it a bad name becuase of all the horrible code.
Well written php is just as quick as .net and more portable.
Not to mention the PEAR libraries and other great stuff.

 

What's all this I keep hearing about Ruby on Rails?

 

TBH I have found PHP better for everything I have ever had to do
If we were comparing PHP4 to .NET then I would def favour .NET, but PHP5 certainly holds its own.

Prehaps one of the biggest differences is .NETs markup abstraction. I like the sound of this, however it is very MS biased, and browsing a .NET site making use of this feature returns different results for IE and FF. I really don't like this, especially as often IE gets returned nice HTML making use of DIVs and CSS while FF gets stuck with tables.

I have both .NET and PHP hosting accounts. While my .NET one isn't much more expensive, it does cut corners and offers less features than my PHP account. I think if you go to any host and compare thier PHP packages against the .NET ones, you'll find you get more for your money with PHP.

Anyway, to stop this turning into a flame war its probably easier to point the OP to one which is already underway elsewhere...

Comparison favouring PHP:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/hull_asp.html

Response from .NET dev (working for MS IIRC):
http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/articles/193608.aspx

Second response from original article:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/columns/hull_php2.html

It's a very subjective issue really!

 

Oracle? ORACLE? LOL.

Oracle is a DIRECT competitor to MS SQL. NO WONDER they would favor PHP. Just read google regarding that article...ITS VERY BIASED.

 

I hate ASP, therefore you shouldn't use it... because that would piss me off. Mmmk?

 

I'd have to suggest PHP purely due to its simplicity and the fact that you've already dealt with it in the past - meaning you should be able to pick up the syntax almost immediately.

PHP's GD library is excellent for creating barcharts as you said you'd need, and can be applied to almost any other type of graphs you'd need to do in connection with this site.

John Cena I'm sure you love .NET, but there's no need to blindly peddle Microsoft's products at every single opportunity when it's probably not the ideal choice. At the moment the only biased advice is yours.

 

All the sources I referenced are heavily biased, one is by Oracle so of course it would be, the other is a Microsoft employee.

My point was that no matter what is said, it is always going to end up in a debate where neither side is going to give in and whatever is said will eventually lead to a flame war

I was by no means using them to justify going PHP over .NET or vice versa, just highlighting the net outcome of any discussions about the subject.

As for Ruby, I have never used it personally so can't really comment. I have only really heard good things about it though if that is of any use!

 

"What's all this I keep hearing about Ruby on Rails?"

No. I've used it, honestly, it doesn't really offer any advantages at all.
And Ruby's syntax is really non-standard, unless you've programmed with Smalltalk.

*EDIT* Not to mention everyone with a little bit of web designing experience has heard how good Rails is.
If it's that fantastic, why isn't everyone using it. It's just another Web 2.0 product

 

PHP = Free....
C#, ASP = Not Free...

got with PHP5 & MySQL is my opinion

 

URMMMM Please dont make false statements.

C# AND ASP IS FREE. .Net Platform is COMPLETLY free. You can compile without Visual studio.

IIS IS COMPLETLY FREE for DEVELOPMENT PURPOSES. After you develop, you deploy it to a hosting environment anyways so that shouldnt be a problem.

And Visual Studio isnt the only IDE for .net. There are plenty of excellent IDE with intellisense support...something PHP community struggles with. I mean who the **** edits with a notepad???????????

 

DON'T YOU DARE BRING NOTEPAD INTO THIS!!!

 

Perhaps he meant free as in freedom. (ASP IS TERRORIST!!!!!)

It doesn't matter anyway, ASP and .NET are both out of the question because they won't run on his Apache web server.

 

PHP is CROSS-PLATFORM, so you CAN use it on pretty MUCH any server, not just ****** iis. also, it's a LOT easier to learn BECAUSE the functions actually have descriptive NAMES so you know wtf is going on

of course it isn't compiled ONCE, but big DEAL- the overhead isn't hardly AS high as IIS

to be serious, I'd go with php any day, you don't have to deal with stupid licencing of ms stuff, and you aren't tied to a specific os/httpd. but why would anyone want that??????????????????

 

I agree with ye olde buccaneer ^^