No, asp.net did, and they aren't really comparable. ASP.NET is commercial tosh, and php is a quality script interpreter.
What I wouldn't give for a Visual Studio-ish editor for PHP like ASP.NET 2.0 has... I would choose PHP over ASP.NET 2 any day... but, I have to use it at work. Everything with ASP.NET 2.0 is drag-and-drop, wizards, and editing properties. I've built webapps in 10 minutes that would have taken 2-3 hours to write and debug in PHP. Just drag stuff around, hit the build button, it puts it all on the server and opens a browser window for you to test it out. Right now that's a BIG advantage ASP.NET 2 has over PHP...
the major downfall for asp was it needs Microsoft Windows Servers. and commercial & corporates applications and server managers prefer to go with *nix, Linux or freeBSD ... and more over power and freedom of PHP and huge support from communities helped php grow and mature faster
What you want is Delphi for PHP - Have not tried it yet , but I am confident it will work well http://www.codegear.com/Products/Delphi/DelphiforPHP/tabid/237/Default.aspx I tried CodeCharge http://www.yessoftware.com/products/product.php?product_id=1 It is clunky as hell, and you cannot create a clean bit of code at all so keep away from it. I hear Clarion is also coming with a PHP generator
ASP.NET is actually quite good for Intranet but not suitable for Internet. I am using C# now and I have to say it makes things easy for a programmer - provided you do not want to be innovative (AJAX,CSS new stuff etc.,) but it gets your work done quickly
The php editor I prefer is Nusphere PhpED from Nusphere.com. ASP is great for intranets as mentioned above but php I prefer for internet sites.
PHP might be one of the main reasons, but I don't think it is the only reason of the downfall of ASP. However it is a major fact that PHP is better than ASP (not ASP.NET !), and it is free ...
PHP has a great community, and some really passionate people doing wonderful stuff. With every new version, PHP is geeting more robust and enterprise. PHP can be run on almost any server. With framworks like symfony and mojavi, you can get all the functionality once you can thought from Java only.
Oh my god!!! YES... delphi for php is exactly what I want... drag and drop IDE... not some crappy code editor. I can't wait for it to come out.
Asp is very expensive and very slow, while php is free, it has a great community and it is the fastest interpreter out there. ASP.net can be better in some cases (eg. Delphi) but it is still expensive and slow, so it can be useful only for enterprise projects.