for everyone: mod_mono is a module for the Apache HTTP Server that allows for hosting of ASP.NET pages and other assemblies on multiple platforms by use of the Mono development platform. found this on google, dont know anything about them though: http://www.grokthis.net/AboutUs/
the Mono Project homepage (www.mono-project.com) has a few links. Note that Mono is not on ASP.NET 2.0 level yet. It is still only compatible with ASP.NET 1.1.
I've been working with .net now for some time and have been pushing my clients to move from ASP classic flavour to ASP.net. other than java for serious application development there is nothing comparable. With the release of ASP.net 2.0 things did take (IMO) a worrying turn by abstracting data access and it is potentially going to bread lazy developers and poorly architectured applications. Having said that i don't think it's all bad and Microsoft certainly know their market. Small to medium business can now build powerful (if not so scalable) web applications with limited development knowledge. I don't think anyone who uses php (or ASP for that matter) needs to start looking for a new job just yet as there is plenty of existing sites around and probably some new ones to be developed. But as it stands I don't think php will stand up to the test of time unless it is radically remodelled. It's just to drawn out to develop and use what is becoming standard application architecture. But to be honest serious php developers will apreciate their language and it's abilites/limitations and also see the benefits of a framework like .net. These people will make their own minds up and we may see a php.net. It's the "angry" "bedroom coders" with their "microsft is shit" attitude who will suffer.
Dan, why is it you dont think asp.net applications are scalable? My personal experience is that asp.net applications absolutely scales both up and out. -- and I absolutely agree about the "bedroom coders". Unfortunately, the PHP community is rife with them: Self taught web designers-turned-PHP-coders who knows nothing else about programming, and even less about proper design.
.NET 2.0 is COMPLETELY scalable. Those who disagree are just not educated on the subject. Remoting is simple, object factory makes class structure simple...just friggin try it out. Im amazed that this post spawned 60+ replies. hehe... I love shaking the place up a bit.
Horses for courses is what I have experienced in my day job. I work for a company that has a budget well in excess of $1bn for IT and infrastructure and I can assure you they do not rely on MS (Mostly Sh*tty) to power their web sites. For companies with a decent budget they run on Sun Boxes and Have Oracle Backends and don't rely on Toy MS products in this space. Yeah sure, they do have a few M$ products and they also have around 10x the staff requirements to keep them running as opposed to the other Apps. The support staff hate it whenever a new M$ based app gets pushed into production - because it means for the next 6-12 months they will have to run scripts to re-boot the servers at least once a week to keep them functioning. And Yes, they even have some PHP Apps running as well - and for the job they do it is pretty good. No one technology is better than another one per-se, but on a task by task basis you choose whatever is the most cost-efficient to get the job done and more importantly, the easiest/cheapest apps to run. So No, I don't thing either ASP, ASP.net or .net 2.0 or even PHP (which is my preferred platform) are even anywhere near competing with anything that truly matters to companies who actually spend many $million a YEAR on such things.
IT goes beyond Web my friend. I'm also a software engineer programming windows applications in C#.net. You'd be suprised at how many organisations use Windows applications that are written in C#, or VB for that matter. Like it or not, call is Mostly Sh*tty if you'd like, MS is used. (let's see how many more replies I can get for this thread! heheh)
benjymouse: Why would I think the IDE is "hawt" (Quoting myself here) Lets see - setting up the the DataTables/Queries/Stored Procs/UDF's/Etc... directly in the IDE, while running/testing/previewing the data even with @Vars live without opening anything else... I would classify that Hawt... and can it be done in Notepad? hmmm A flippin awesome realtime color-coding debugger? Telling me if errors might occur before testing? I'm not dissing the language here... I "think" were both on the same side - I'm just saying that the IDE is f***ing unbelievable. and I still build my non-backend (.vb) pages in the Source view.
PHP is undergoing a major overhaul. I think it will stand up to the test of time very easily. It's user base keeps getting bigger, and Zend is backing it's new framework very well.
The last major overhauls have alienated a lot of web developers with the backwards compatibility breaking changes. Uptake of PHP5 among hosting providers have been extremely slow. Some of the "major overhaul" changes are long overdue, like namespaces and unicode support. The user base is in fact shrinking, even in absolute numbers according to php.net's official usage statistics. I would say that it seems like PHP has blown it. RoR is making inroads *fast*, and in the enterprises ASP.NET has all of the virtues that PHP lack, like dependability, stability, performance, scalability, connectivity etc.
Honestly, it doesn't matter what you use as long as you can achieve what you are aiming for. PHP is probably all anyone on this forum will ever need. Most will probably never use it's full potential. ASP.net is great because it allows developers who programmed in J# or C# before to sit down and get dirty, where as they would need to do a little reading with PHP. PHP is a great language and it's only getting better. ASP is also great, but if you already know and use PHP you shouldnt really jump all over ASP because it does not have that many benefits, YET.
I think everyone is forgeting the fact that PHP is a scripting language only, nothing more, the .NET platform is much more than that. Since they each have thier own use, everyone is really trying to compare apples and oranges.