Web Development Tool Of Choice

All,

Had a little think today and been waying up the options of the different server technologies available to me for web development. I've allways been a PHP developer because of its simplicity and I can use it with a designer without him buying extra software etc. Now I've just stepped into the ASP.NET world and so far so good it has its down sides but in general its looking good. Now JSP seems to be on the rise and I've had a few years background in Java.

Just interested to see (While I understand it may be a biased forum to ask) what your guys experiences are on the different technologies if any!


Pino!

I like ASP.NET simply because prior to .NET when working on web pages, I used classic ASP. There was the occassional Java applet that I tossed in for some type of function or other, but the lions share of the code I did was ASP.

I am totally new to web dev - and have only used ASP.Net.

But I must say that the power of this is incredible. We are developing some pretty complex DB UI's with this - and everything I've wanted to do so far has been easily (after Mendhak explains it to me) possible.

If you think ASP.NET is incredible, you should have done some coding in classic ASP and then moved to .NET - "incredible" is far too mild! :)

The difference in what you can do is even greater than the difference in what you can do between VB6 and VB.NET

I'm glad I came late to the game ;)

Being able to code in VB.Net on the server - with all that framework available to me - and have that seamlessly transfer to the web page is really great.

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Originally Posted by Hack

If you think ASP.NET is incredible, you should have done some coding in classic ASP and then moved to .NET - "incredible" is far too mild! :)

The difference in what you can do is even greater than the difference in what you can do between VB6 and VB.NET

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I can't agree more! :) ASP.Net + VB.Net is my toolset of choice when it comes to web development.
I still support few ASP.Classic apps - man, what a pain so I hope they retire them soon so I ca n build a brand new. :rolleyes:

I often prided myself in being able to work with PHP, ASP and ASP.NET. But using ASP.NET so much has made it 'difficult' to work with PHP and ASP now. It does bother me a little. But anything I attempt to do in these technologies, ASP.NET changes it... rather changes the way things are done.

But, just to appear unbiased, I think PHP's popularity makes up for whatever it may lack when compared to ASP.NET. It's more widely used, great support, you know the usual.

I still sound biased, don't I? :(

I like the ease of PHP but I like the power of ASP.NET much better. But with great power comes great responsibility :D

I have to say that i like PHP better because of the lower cost. and i can never seem to get my ASP.net apps to work on my server!

Well that doesnt sound like a reason as Web Developer Express is free and getting it to work on your server doesnt involve a cost :D

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Originally Posted by dclamp

I have to say that i like PHP better because of the lower cost. and i can never seem to get my ASP.net apps to work on my server!

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I never wrote a web app prior to about 2 months ago. It was a struggle to wrap my arms around how the whole ASP.Net platform was working - but now that I've read a good WROX book and have a dozen pages under my belt it's much easier.

What book did you get?

I always find the purely technical/programming books to be too broad - written for complete novices and you waste lots of reading on things your really already know.

I went for this one:

Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Design: CSS, Themes, and Master Pages

http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTit...470124482.html

Keep in mind I never did any HTML either - so the whole CSS aspect was completely foreign to me. But this book did a great job on describing the differences between all the approaches - how to handle resolutions, image processing, use of screen areas - why java vs xyz vs abc is preferred and such.

Mendhak got me past the HTML/CSS stuff with these tutorials

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_examples.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp

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Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 and Databases
by John Kauffman and Bradley Millington

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Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition
by Bill Evjen et al.

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The latter is probably the best one i have seen (a lot of stuff!) but the first one will bring you up to speed with everything quite quickly and easily :)

As for the one szLamany suggested that is also very good :)

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Originally Posted by Paul M

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Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition
by Bill Evjen et al.

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Do you think an experienced .Net programmer (Win Forms) will gain something from this book?

I'm looking to pick up something that will help me avoid asking Mendhak these simple questions I keep coming across ;)

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Originally Posted by szlamany

Do you think an experienced .Net programmer (Win Forms) will gain something from this book?

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Yes most definitely, here is a list of the content...

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Introduction
Chapter 1 - Hello ASP.NET 2.0!
Chapter 2 - Visual Studio 2005
Chapter 3 - Application and Page Frameworks
Chapter 4 - ASP.NET Server Controls and Client-Side Scripts
Chapter 5 - ASP.NET Web Server Controls
Chapter 6 - ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server Controls
Chapter 7 - Validation Server Controls
Chapter 8 - Working with Master Pages
Chapter 9 - Themes and Skins
Chapter 10 - Collections and Lists
Chapter 11 - Data Binding in ASP.NET 2.0
Chapter 12 - Data Management with ADO.NET
Chapter 13 - Working with XML
Chapter 14 - Introduction to the Provider Model
Chapter 15 - Extending the Provider Model
Chapter 16 - Site Navigation
Chapter 17 - Personalization
Chapter 18 - Membership and Role Management
Chapter 19 - Portal Frameworks and Web Parts
Chapter 20 - Security
Chapter 21 - State Management
Chapter 22 - Caching
Chapter 23 - Debugging and Error Handling Techniques
Chapter 24 - File I/O and Streams
Chapter 25 - User and Server Controls
Chapter 26 - Modules and Handlers
Chapter 27 - Using Business Objects
Chapter 28 - Mobile Development
Chapter 29 - Building and Consuming XML Web Services
Chapter 30 - Localization
Chapter 31 - Configuration
Chapter 32 - Instrumentation
Chapter 33 - Administration and Management
Chapter 34 - Packaging and Deploying ASP.NET Applications
Appendix A - Visual Basic 8.0 and C# 2.0 Language Enhancements
Appendix B - Migrating ASP.NET 1.x Projects
Appendix C - Using Atlas
Appendix D - ASP.NET Online Resources

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Thank you very much - I'm off to the book store right now!

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Originally Posted by szlamany

Thank you very much - I'm off to the book store right now!

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No problem :D

As you can see it doesn't drag on about XHTML etc...

So as along as you have that stuff down pat this book can be of great use to you! It has been for me :)

$34.99 szlamany. No need to drive to the store :D

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-A.../dp/047004179X

Thanks guys for the book references. :)

I am a compulsive-immediate-gratification type - mail order doesn't cut it for me :D

Then wouldnt reading an online article be more "instant"? :D

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Originally Posted by dclamp

I have to say that i like PHP better because of the lower cost. and i can never seem to get my ASP.net apps to work on my server!

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A carpenter blames his tools? :confused:

Hey, there's nothing wrong with asking simple questions! :D

We all start off taking baby steps with the simpler concepts, but once the concepts make more sense, it's smooth sailing. Like riding a bike on a road tarred with razor blades and nails. :afrog:

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Originally Posted by mendhak

Hey, there's nothing wrong with asking simple questions! :D

We all start off taking baby steps with the simpler concepts, but once the concepts make more sense, it's smooth sailing. Like riding a bike on a road tarred with razor blades and nails. :afrog:

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That sounds like you are riding your bike down Emo Street! :lol:

Starting out with the basics makes it easier to succeed.

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Originally Posted by mendhak

A carpenter blames his tools? :confused:

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$30 hammer or Free Hammer...

Touche.

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Originally Posted by dclamp

$30 hammer or Free Hammer...

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Either one will drive a nail in just fine :D
Now if you cant hit the nail with either hammer then its a hand-eye-coordination issue. See operators manual :D

In my tool bag I use:
For server side of things -
PHP (4 and 5)
MySQL
For developing -
Notepad++
NVU (or kompozer)

Lets point out that this forum was written using PHP :).