I've never touched .NET code in my life, and I'm quite happy to stick with PHP.

Leaving the open source world just seems to instantly boost your expenses. Windows servers... "Microsoft Certified" developers (or at least limiting your potential developer pool)... it all adds to the lifetime cost of doing business.

I'm sure you could just as easily find a company that works from a PHP foundation and stay happy in the long term.

-Ryan

There is almost a religious divide between developers who work in PHP and other Linux based, open source, development tools and Microsoft based developers (aka .NET). I'm kind of agnostic myself which is a rare thing in today's overspecialized, academically uptight, often snobbish programming market.

Basically, .NET is based around Microsoft technologies. It's great if you're working within a corporate environment and if you need highly complex systems and need to use a very strong object oriented approach to software development. It's also a lot more costly in terms of development and hosting expenses. Also, developers steeped in .NET generally are poor web designers and ignorant of how to incorporate SEO into a web design although they are generally more "academically pure" programmers.

PHP, while it is used on several highly successful sites, is a little more "seat of the pants" programming. It is more scripting than actual full blown programming in most cases and that drives OOP and software design model purists to distraction. In general, PHP programmers will be more familiar with building a good web design and handling SEO properly but will tend to come up short when building more complex systems that might involve remote services, integrating with remote data sources and so forth unless they've had exposure to this at some point.

Bottom line, I'd lean toward hiring a company that had PHP experience and was their core activity if a PHP site is what you want and need. Of course, you might find a company/person who could do equally well in either environment but, as I said, this is kind of rare given the way the market is these days.

i would suggest stick with php since you know that.

if you have them do it on .net make sure you get the source code (project files) from them.

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oki doki,

well i code in both .Net / PHP

PHP is cheaper to host and nothing beats 'hand coding' and plays nicely with MySQL so its a very cheap way to go.

.Net (C#, VB.Net) You have quite a few 'drag n drop' components for rapid application development. The downside is that finding a MSSQL host isnt the cheapest.

if your in a business situation .Net looks better on paper seeing guys go to the micro$oft shows and believe the hype......as most do

php has a bigger community and help is easier to get if your stuck.

I would stay with PHP seeing comfortable with it, maybe learn .Net as a hobby until your comfortable.

Basically, if you don't know .net.. then you will only have to rely on coders to help you.. or DIY at a very slow speed.

php and .net are good, they all have pros and cons.. i just happen to love php and have to use .net against my will

Good luck

.NET isn't a programming language... it's an application framework.

Whether I considered using PHP or a .NET language would depend fully on the application and if I needed to integrate with legacy systems. My personal preference for building stand alone web apps is PHP. Just a preference, nothing more.

Sorry.. when I refer to .Net I think of C# in the .net context.

php symfony is something to consider.

I'd agree with one of the other posters ... Stick with what you know. Have them write it in PHP. Nothing is worse than if something is broken, and you know how to fix it one language, but it's coded in a different one.

Then you have to worry about updating your IDE, OS, hosting account,etc. It might be more expensive for development in PHP, but you'll end up with more peace of mind in my opinion.

I know both (ASP.NET, w/ VB or C) and I stick to PHP.

I just love open source and using a unix terminal. Very greatly dislike IIS.

HI..

I agree with BGMACAW..thanx for sharing this usefull information...

ASP.NET code is not compiled in memory into binary code - it can be, if you want it to, but generally it gets compiled offline into an MSIL assembly, and then JIT-compiled into native code the first time it's run. After that it has speed comparable to a native C program. PHP, to my knowledge, does no compilation ahead of time, re-parsing and interpreting the entire script on every request.