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RE: PHP versus ASP.NET WAS: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Brian Densmore 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

One more thing. I am all for using mono to embrace .Net and c#. I believe we should take this opportunity to "embrace and extend" .net and c#. We should add features to .net and to c# to make it better, faster and more useful for the world at large. We should make these features available via GPL. What better way to take away Microsoft market share than by using their own tactics against them. Plus if we add features we can be sure they really do work in cross-browser/platforms, and they are the features that we really want and are useful.

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RE: PHP versus ASP.NET WAS: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Brian Densmore 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) > > ... of the two I've seen more professional C# code than I > have PHP. I should probably take a look at these two projects and see > if there are any organizations tricks I can pickup from them. Well this would make sense since there are likely many many more people coding for Windows than Linux and PHP is probably more used by Linux/Unix people than Windows people. > Another thing is that C# doesn't force any specific organizational > scheme; it just provides more mechanisms to do so. This is probably a > by-product of being compiled however. > > Although I've heard you can compile PHP as well; I've never had any > experience with it. Be careful there, it is my understanding that C# is compiled to bytecode. This is like calling java a compiled language. When I think compiled, I think c, Pascal, COBOL, assembly, etc. Compiling to bytecode certainly has advantages, but it is still interpreted. The nice thing about compiling to byte code is being able to transfer "compiled" code across platforms. You still need to have interpreters compiled to the machine code for every platform. <tangent> Also a byte code compiled language may or may not be as fast an "interpreted" language. Also different programs may perform differently based on coding style. Long ago on a planet far, far away, I wrote an interpreted VB program that ran faster than a compiled c program. This was a proof of concept demonstration, and I would never put such an app into a live system. It was what you might call extreme code reuse (it had 1 text box that pretended to 50, the c program actually had 50 text boxes). It was a real ugly VB program. </tangent>

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RE: PHP versus ASP.NET WAS: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

>Well it is really up to the developer to compartmentalize the code. That is >what we get paid the big bucks for. As far as scaling, take a look at >squirrelmail and phpgedview. Both of these PHP apps are quite professional >and phpGedView is considered the best genealogy web viewing app on the >"market". They are around 8 and 4 MB of code respectively and are quite >well compartmentalized if you ask me. I have done some tweaking to the code >on phpGedView on my site, and have not had any problem understanding the >organization of the developer. In fact the hardest programs I have ever had >to debug and understand were those that were "compartmentalized" by a >program for the developer rather than by the developer. So, I consider a >language that predefines where to compartmentalize things to be a downside. >To each their own though. Oh I agree. All I was speaking for was my personal experience, which was that C# is easier to organize that PHP. Both languages I learned from books, and of the two I've seen more professional C# code than I have PHP. I should probably take a look at these two projects and see if there are any organizations tricks I can pickup from them. Another thing is that C# doesn't force any specific organizational scheme; it just provides more mechanisms to do so. This is probably a by-product of being compiled however. Although I've heard you can compile PHP as well; I've never had any experience with it.

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RE: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

>I haven't tried ASP.NET yet. Did Mono write their own implementation of the >ASP library that you build the assembly against or are you supposed to use >the ASP.NET libraries from a Windows platform? They've reimplementation their own libraries. Like from the original post, if you want to try to run ASP.NET applications on Linux, monoForge is the place to go. I was also successful in getting it to run on my local development machine, but it was a pain. I do think it's possible to just copy the Microsoft assemblies over, but I'm not sure of the legality of the whole thing. Also, Microsoft has been known to take shortcuts in their framework and merely wrap their .Net libraries around the old COM libraries. I'm not sure if any of the ASP.NET libraries would have this problem, but the System.Data libraries might. These would not run on Linux, of course. Mono has done this to a limited equivalent extent on Linux, but always with the plans to implement a completely managed version in the future. Mono has implemented or is working on implementing two different stacks of libraries. The first is the complete Microsoft stack, and the second is their own stack (GTK# etc.). For a while, they were not planning on implementing the Web Services stack, but then a company paid them to do so, so now that's possible on Mono now as well. I'm not sure if there are other similar situations. Josh

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RE: PHP versus ASP.NET WAS: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Brian Densmore 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) > > > ... It's been my experience that php doesn't scale up to larger projects > very well when compared to .Net/C#. It quickly becomes an > organizational nightmare. With C# and .NET(which includes > mono), it is very easy to compartmentalize your code any number of ways. For > example, put you entire data access layer in one assembly( shared > library), you business objects into another, security and > permissions in > another, etc. etc. You can use a different namespace for each one to > make your code more readable. And namespaces can be shared across > assemblies. > Well it is really up to the developer to compartmentalize the code. That is what we get paid the big bucks for. As far as scaling, take a look at squirrelmail and phpgedview. Both of these PHP apps are quite professional and phpGedView is considered the best genealogy web viewing app on the "market". They are around 8 and 4 MB of code respectively and are quite well compartmentalized if you ask me. I have done some tweaking to the code on phpGedView on my site, and have not had any problem understanding the organization of the developer. In fact the hardest programs I have ever had to debug and understand were those that were "compartmentalized" by a program for the developer rather than by the developer. So, I consider a language that predefines where to compartmentalize things to be a downside. To each their own though. I'm not saying that PHP is a magic bullet. I just like things that I can display on my browser at home and in the office and not have strange things happen. Something I notice happens quite frequently with .Net. JMHO, Brian

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RE: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

>Also, just for kicks, try compiling your code >with monoc. The resulting assemblies might be more... agnostic. I did forget to mention this. If you are building a solution with visual studio, it is a good idea to recompile the solution with the mono compiler. The way build numbers are used in visual studio sometimes messes up the mono runtime, and compiling on mono eliminates this issue. This also demonstrates one of the real strengths of .NET / Mono. It is fun to write an application in C# on either Linux or windows, and compile it, then copy the executable over and run it on the other platform. Or just copy the source code over and compile it on the other platform, and then copy it back and run it. Or any other combination you choose. This isn't limited to Web applications either. Command line based applications work the same way. Applications using the Windows.Forms library will run, although you may run into problems, I'm not sure. Mono was depending on wine to correctly display the windows.forms controls, but now they are implementing a completely managed implementation. The gtk bindings (GTK#) runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. So now you can write applications that run on all three platforms *without* recompiling. But what about dependencies? In both the .Net framework and the Mono Framework, any custom libraries you depend on can either be loaded into the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) or merely reside in the same directory as the executable. Or any other predefined location. Come to think of it, you could probably define this location at runtime using Reflection... But now I've wandered a bit from the originally reply (Sorry Jason). Josh

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RE: PHP versus ASP.NET WAS: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

>>|Well, with ASP and PHP, you can generate all the HTML manually, so you >>can control how closely to >Can is the operative word here. How many actually do? My point was that this is a developer issue, not a language issue. >| The biggest advantage ASP.NET has over classic ASP and PHP is the ideas of Code-Behind, where you >| have a clean separation of your code and the presentation code. You have to do quite a bit to >| approach this in PHP or ASP. Also, managed post backs / page states are quite nice. >The question we should be asking here is why is this necessary? >I'm not an advanced PHP coder (something I hope to fix soon) so I really >can't speak to >how easy it would be to do. The biggest advantage I've seen is in maintenance. These make your program a lot easier and cleaner to maintain. >Well I guess that depends on what you think a webscripting language should >do. True. For extremely small projects, I would say that php is just fine. Larger projects require something more, I think. >How do you figure the .Net debugger is cheaper than the PHP debugger? I >don't use a PHP debugger, >at least not yet. So I'm completely ignorant of costs. But if there is a >cost difference, it is >most likely only there so Microsoft can kill off all competition to .Net so >they can start >charging through the nose for the .Net debugger. Typical M$ attack pattern >(ref: Sun Tzu's Art of War :: Microsoft Press). I was comparing Visual C# Standard ($109 US) to the Zend Studio ($249 US). Both include debuggers. Although, technically, The Zend Studio debugger has problems because it can't connect to the database backend. >Overloading functions is taken from c/c++. Something that could be done >most likely with java code. My point was that you can do this using ASP.NET / C# and you can't in PHP. Not sure about PHP 5 though. Overloading Constructors can be very helpful sometimes. C# also has cool things like delegates, templates / generics (in version 2.0) and a larger framework that is easily extensible. It's been my experience that php doesn't scale up to larger projects very well when compared to .Net/C#. It quickly becomes an organizational nightmare. With C# and .NET(which includes mono), it is very easy to compartmentalize your code any number of ways. For example, put you entire data access layer in one assembly( shared library), you business objects into another, security and permissions in another, etc. etc. You can use a different namespace for each one to make your code more readable. And namespaces can be shared across assemblies.

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Re: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Brian Kelsay 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

Of course! The Abacus was probably around during Sun Tzu's time. For the low, low price of $19.95 I can sell you the Sucaba computer. It runs off of kinetic energy and is self-charging. It is environmentally friendly and will not put nasty lead back into the environment when it is recycled. It's user viewing interface is easy on the eyes and the keyboard is designed to reduce RSI. It's lighter than the average laptop and more durable. Compute like the ancients, get a Sucaba today!! Brian Kelsay >>> Gerald Combs <> 02/16/05 01:25PM >>> Jason Clinton wrote: > On Wednesday 16 February 2005 10:49, Brian Densmore wrote: > >>Tzu's Art of War :: Microsoft Press). Overloading functions is taken from >>c/c++. Something that could be done most likely with java code. > > > Actually I believe it comes from LISP or possibly Smalltalk or its predecessor > Simula. Next you'll be telling us that there were personal computers before the IBM PC. Sheesh.

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RE: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Brian Densmore 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

|-----Original Message----- |From: Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) [mailto:jmcqk6@umkc.edu] |Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:57 AM |To: Brian Densmore; kclug(a)kclug.org |Subject: RE: Test Hosting Recommendation | | |Well, with ASP and PHP, you can generate all the HTML manually, so you can control how closely to Can is the operative word here. How many actually do? | | Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the cross browser experience pretty good for XHTML (Strict) | pages? Don't know, haven't tested it. | | The biggest advantage ASP.NET has over classic ASP and PHP is the ideas of Code-Behind, where you | have a clean separation of your code and the presentation code. You have to do quite a bit to | approach this in PHP or ASP. Also, managed post backs / page states are quite nice. The question we should be asking here is why is this necessary? I'm not an advanced PHP coder (something I hope to fix soon) so I really can't speak to how easy it would be to do. | I'm working on a PHP project after spending most of my time recently on ASP.NET, and while I used | to think PHP was great, after working with C# and the .Net framework, PHP looks rather primitive. Well I guess that depends on what you think a webscripting language should do. | Not being able to overload functions, or having strongly typed variables, or any number of other | things has been a pain. Not to mention that the Debugger for the .Net framework is a lot better | than the debugger available for PHP (and cheaper, I think). How do you figure the .Net debugger is cheaper than the PHP debugger? I don't use a PHP debugger, at least not yet. So I'm completely ignorant of costs. But if there is a cost difference, it is most likely only there so Microsoft can kill off all competition to .Net so they can start charging through the nose for the .Net debugger. Typical M$ attack pattern (ref: Sun Tzu's Art of War :: Microsoft Press). Overloading functions is taken from c/c++. Something that could be done most likely with java code. | When it comes to the speed differences on your machine between Firefox and explorer - that is | something I've never understood. This is not related to the server at all, right? It's a | rendering engine issue, right? The server serves up the pages at the same speed no matter what, | right? Like I said, I'm not sure, and I've always wondered about this issue. Microsoft would like you to believe this. No it doesn't have anything to do with the server. It has to do with code coming from the server based on browser information reported from the client. In other words, the server creates *different* pages based on the browser. The IE browsers get extra code/data so that some functions run locally on the client machine. Whereas, all other browsers have to retrieve that information from the server, in a separate request. Hence slower performance.

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RE: Test Hosting Recommendation
by Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) 16 Feb '05

16 Feb '05

Well, with ASP and PHP, you can generate all the HTML manually, so you can control how closely to standards the HTML sticks, and which standards you will stick to (xhtml, html, etc.). Unfortunately, ASP.NET does not generate strict XHTML, though there are aftermarket solutions to fix this. I've not tried this personally, however. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the cross browser experience pretty good for XHTML (Strict) pages? The biggest advantage ASP.NET has over classic ASP and PHP is the ideas of Code-Behind, where you have a clean separation of your code and the presentation code. You have to do quite a bit to approach this in PHP or ASP. Also, managed post backs / page states are quite nice. I'm working on a PHP project after spending most of my time recently on ASP.NET, and while I used to think PHP was great, after working with C# and the .Net framework, PHP looks rather primitive. Not being able to overload functions, or having strongly typed variables, or any number of other things has been a pain. Not to mention that the Debugger for the .Net framework is a lot better than the debugger available for PHP (and cheaper, I think). When it comes to the speed differences on your machine between Firefox and explorer - that is something I've never understood. This is not related to the server at all, right? It's a rendering engine issue, right? The server serves up the pages at the same speed no matter what, right? Like I said, I'm not sure, and I've always wondered about this issue. Josh ________________________________ From: kclug-bounces(a)kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Brian Densmore Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:33 AM To: kclug(a)kclug.org Subject: RE: Test Hosting Recommendation Ok. So how good are the pages on cross-browsers? I've seen a number of issues with .net web pages rendering very differently on Explorer and Opera or Firefox/Mozilla. I've also noticed some major speed differences between Explorer and Firefox running on the same machine. I have no problem supporting ASP as a server side page generator, as long as it is usable by all browsers equally. For this reason I use PHP for now. -----Original Message----- From: Charles, Joshua Micah (UMKC-Student) [mailto:jmcqk6@umkc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 9:16 AM To: kclug(a)kclug.org Subject: Test Hosting Reccomendation Hello All. This post is concerning ASP.NET hosting on Linux. There is a service out there: http://www.monoforge.com/ I have a simple application running on my space. Here is an example of the power of this setup. I developed my solution on Windows XP using Visual Studio 2003 .NET. I compiled it on windows using the Microsoft .NET C# compiler. Then I simply copied my files over using an FTP client and it ran, on Linux, without recompilation. It has a MySQL backend. When I first uploaded my app, the MySQL connector was not installed on the server machine. So I simply copied the dll into the execution directory ( bin/ ) and my custom app found it and used it automatically - problem solved. The hosting is free for the moment, because this is currently a beta test. Once it goes live, beta testers will get some money off the final product. If nothing else, this is great for experimenting with. Have fun! Josh

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