PHP is it worth learning

[Danial]

Hi Guys,
I have been doing asp for a while. Have done JSP too, was thinking of learning PHP. Was wondering if its worth learning.

What does it offer that ASP and JSP cant. I want to hear from the expert. BTW what server would i need to run php, apache?

Thanks

Danial

[chrisjk]

php is definately worth learning, it's always good to know another language.

apache would be good, IIS works too.

[Danial]

Originally posted by chrisjk
php is definately worth learning, it's always good to know another language.

apache would be good, IIS works too.

Thanks chris for your response.

PHP runs on IIS? Thats cool, mind me telling how i can set it up, do i need to download any plug ins?

And yes i love learning new languages and php seem to be gaining popularity. I tried my hands on perl for few hours, didnt like it that much so gave up. Hope php will be intersting.

Thanks again.

[JoshT]

Well, IMHO Perl is a better language than PHP (I'm not implying that PHP is bad, I just like Perl better).

It's simple to install PHP on IIS. Download the installer file from www.php.net and run it. Then thru ISM map *.php (or whatever) files to whereever you installed php.exe. You can also run it as ISAPI rather than CGI if you download the bundle that has the ISAPI DLLs - its supposed to finally be stable on Windows 2000, but I've had weird problems on Windows.Net Web Server that I haven't really figured out yet.

[hardcoder]

Danial

PHP is an extremely fast lang. And it's real easy for beginners to start on. It's fun too!

Also,it's quite lightweight. ASP gives you so many (7?) objects in your code, gives you the freedom to integrate with COM/MTS etc. that can lead to code that stretches onto other realms and slows down the real thing : the web page. JSP etc carry the overhead of the JVM etc.
Isn't the heaviest thing on most webpages the Database connection? Isn't most of a page a few select queries with some proper for/while etc loops to format the results? PHP lets you do that! And with no extra strings. And it's fast too.

I am not saying that ASP/JSP are out! Not yet,because PHP is still an adolescent - lots of functionailty but can it handle Amazon.com ? What about scalability after all? What about a transaction server that will make it easier to use it on ecom sites ( no i am not contradicting myself)?

But If I need to make a small to medium website , and in a jiffy ,... PHP it is! :)


I hope I haven't started anything here! yeesh...:eek:

[chrisjk]

out of interest, anybody know what amazon use?

their URL's give nothing away; http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/browse/-/welcome/468294/202-3480421-9171053

how the crap they manage to maintain their site I have no idea (that's just the homepage :eek: )

[JoshT]

Chances are Amazon is all custom written.

[ubunreal69]

"PHP is it worth learning ?", simple, YEH !!!! oath, PHP rocks. :D

[Howard Stern]

Amazon.com is developed with C/C++/Oracle on UNIX

[anoop007]

Originally posted by Danial
BTW what server would i need to run php, apache?

Thanks

Danial

If you want to just learn PHP... a simple web server is badblue.
www.badblue.com .. small and easy to setup.

[rounder]

Let's not forget how easily php plays with mysql, not to mention the powerfull tools written in php to admin mysql databases. phpmyadmin for example.
just my 2

[ubunreal69]

Originally posted by Danial


Thanks chris for your response.

PHP runs on IIS? Thats cool, mind me telling how i can set it up, do i need to download any plug ins?

And yes i love learning new languages and php seem to be gaining popularity. I tried my hands on perl for few hours, didnt like it that much so gave up. Hope php will be intersting.

Thanks again. PHP runs on basically any web server, i am currently sweeking it through PWS and then Apache sometimes, the setup tutorial that comes with it will explain how to set it up on both of those servers.

[MidgetsBro]

And if you know anything about C++, then you can get PHP right away. I knew the very basic stuff from C++, so PHP was really easy to pick up. It is worth the time if you have a website that you want to maintain easily, while still updating often. :)

[Aurilus]

For me PHP is a weird combination of VB, JavaScript, C++.. it has the best things from all of these languages and more. Very easy to learn.. I'm running an apache web server, php, and mysql at home for development purposes and it's stable, fast, and didn't stuff up any other setting on my machine.

[Danial]

Originally posted by Aurilus
For me PHP is a weird combination of VB, JavaScript, C++.. it has the best things from all of these languages and more. Very easy to learn.. I'm running an apache web server, php, and mysql at home for development purposes and it's stable, fast, and didn't stuff up any other setting on my machine.

Yes i am familiar with VB, JavaScript, C++ and Java/JSP/Servelet, been thinking of starting to learn PHP. I am relatively good with ASP and JSP so i thougt i will learn PHP too as there is a big demand for it.

I heard a lot about MySQL, is it a database server like SQL server, is it free.

I assume that like ASP/JSP/Servelet i can use standard SQL to add/delete and update records, or is it different in PHP.

Thanks for all the response.

Danial

[Aurilus]

Yes MySQL is free, and PHP has built-in functions to support it too. It's very widely used and can be downloaded from http://www.mysql.com.

For more info check out the help file downloadable from http://www.php.net as it details everything PHP can do, as well as how to use the database functions.

[NewHelp4Me]

How would i make a VB program that asks you to register it. I want the program to have a name, email, zip code, ect. areas to fill in information. I want it to then send name, email.... using a URL to my web server running Xitami with PHP enabled. Could i get the user's information somehow logged on a site using HTML or PHP, if so would PHP or HTML be easier. I'm kinda a beginner with PHP and Beginner-Intermediate VB programmer.

[Martin Wilson]

I use Apache + PHP + mySQl
Apache is VERY easy to setup.
PHP is also very easy, you just need to add three lines to a config file.
mySQL is easy to install. Setting up the database took me a while but I only started learning SQL 2 days ago and now I'm practically an expert!