Survey says: PHP passes Microsoft Active Server Pages

[sleipnir214]

In April 2002, Netcraft's monthly Web server survey revealed that 24 percent, or around 9 million of the 37 million sites it surveyed, were using Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) for a server side scripting language. For the first time, an Open Source scripting solution had passed Microsoft's proprietary Active Server Pages scripting to claim the top spot on the Netcraft survey.

Here's the article:

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/06/11/011243

Perfection in engineering does not happen when there is nothing more to add. Rather it happens when there is nothing more to take away.

 

[sonnysavage]

Excellent!

 

[rycamor]

Also, note that the Alpha version of PHP with Zend 2 scripting engine is now available at

http://www.php.net.

This will be a major step forward in establishing PHP as a "serious" programming language. Check it out.

And, combine that fact with a couple of other good ones:

-

http://theregister.co.uk/content/23/25620.html

(Application Service Providers are making a comeback)

-

http://php.net/dotnet

-

http://php.net/java

-

http://php.net/com

-

http://pear.php.net/manual/en/pecl.satellite.php

We will be able to talk anyone's language. We will rule... MWAAAAHAHAHAhahaha...

;-) -------------------------------------------

"Now, this might cause some discomfort..."
(

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html)

 

[jimoblak]

I'm stumbling around the netcraft site. Is there some place that displays the use/popularity of PHP compared to ASP today?

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[lebisol]

I love free/open source stuff but it just never makes it past my "playground"....consider this

ASP Development team:
-M$

PHP dev team:
-my cousin Willie and 3 towers in his garage

I doubt PHP will rule or get u a job...a real job not some 1 time deal with local florist who wants hit store on the web.
PHP is what Linux is in the world of personal computing ...
"a cheep alternative"
but PHP sure is a cool language rooted into some C++ aspect...the problem is that it "powers its own development as competition to giants"
...at the end of the day...DB-web-trip is nothing but a set of pigeon boxes...what counts is how we get our info in-out of there and how much are we willing to put up with the process of it....
All the best!

> need more info?
:: don't click HERE ::

 

[jimoblak]

Thanks for the quantitative comparison lebisol.

As a general rule about getting a job, you are right - - but that is not a reason to discredit a language. I'm seeing quite a few job openings for folks that are well-trained in PHP. As silly as I am, even I get paid for PHP work.

Many money-grubbing big-time corporations use PHP to power their sites.

You seem to be missing the picture on the development of open source. PHP and MySQL are being developed by an organized army of paid employees (zend.com & mysql.com are commercial entities). They simply opened their door so that volunteers can peek in and help.

After a snafu this month, isn't Microsoft a little open source now?

The reason why I resurrected this topic after nearly 2 years is because I was dealing with an IT admin who claimed that he had never heard of PHP. I was hoping to present some real statistics about how pervasive PHP is.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[sleipnir214]

Oops. Someone's blind prejudices are showing...

lebisol:
Actually, the PHP development team is not your cousin Willie -- it's an Israeli company named Zend Technologies. They give the core language engine away while selling speed-boosting and caching products that enhance the performance of the language.

And by the way, with all the massive security holes in Win32, I'm not so sure that a product's being written by Mi[¢]ro$oft is necessarily something to brag about.

But my last job and my current one require programming skills in PHP. And not just one-off websites, either. Real jobs -- ones that pay regular paychecks and have health benefits.

PHP does quite well "getting data in-out of there". It has native connectivity with SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other database engines. As I recall, ASP requires that one use ADO or ODBC -- which saps performance. And PHP does it on more than just one family of operating systems.

Plus there's all the neat stuff PHP does with native functons that one has to buy COM objects to accomplish in ASP. Or do without. Things like image creation on-the-fly, PDF creation on-the-fly, network socket programming, file uploads, to name a few.

PHP doesn't power itself as competition to the giants. PHP exists as a superior product.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[lebisol]

Hello Mr. Oblak (Cloud?) and sleipnir214!
Thanx for the posts!
I think u took this a bit too hard and personal but u re-started a nice topic so
...I was simply reflecting of the "professional" comments:
-----rycamor (Programmer)-----
We will be able to talk anyone's language. We will rule... MWAAAAHAHAHAhahaha...
------------------------------

as far as company cocepts u put it yourslef
>
Israeli Company vs. MS
<......my point exactly. Who is more secure to give you your monys' worht?
ok, yes I am well aware of MS and their programming wholes and horrific releases and updates that have to deal with...trust me...I had enough pain :-D with MS. Every one seems to hate MS (including me for their skin-pealing techinques) but YET 1000s of the same people have lined up in 90s to pick up MS Certs...funny how that works.

I am aware of PHP's connections and hooks that will outpeform ASP in given scenarions but if u look at both languages in its "native worlds" things chage. People forget that ASP was not devleoped to do anything but to "go hand in hand" with its mother products...of course from MS family.....and as such I saw enviroments where it still outperfromed PHPs native setup. "Native" not the derived ablities to connect to other DBs...we are talking
DAY 1 in life of:
----------------
PHP-MySQL
vs.
ASP-MS SQL
---------------
...ok, I sould say I was demonstrated the raw SQL pulls.
But, above all, I didn't post here to dispute the PHP as a language and its quality....actually, I think it is quite easier to debug...easier to read...closer to C and C++...overall exactly - a neat code!...we are taking just a programmer,notepad and code to write. PHP has my props!

What does bother me is that someone pulls numbers based on "how many site use this or that"....which is just a rediculous way of looking and judging the quility of a code. As I said, there are sooo many sites that simply use PHP "because every one else is doing it"...in esence NOT using the power of PHP wher their "content" could have stayed in HTML or for some should have stayed in txt format
THIS is what bothers me.....they managed to "increase PHPs popluarity without ever writing a single script"...
much like many site u see runung those Discussion Forums...
while the rest of the content never even touches the DB...
here is waht it takes to increase PHP popularity:
- a tower
- some linux version as OS
- PHP support
- free MySQL
- free Invision Forums
by tonight I can have 100s of "sites" representing PHP wihtout EVER writing a single string of code!

I am sure that 'YUGO' was the "best selling car" at one point....but was it the best car? LOL... and bragging about YUGO "sales NUMBERS" will still not convince me to buy it or even take it for free!
so, in other words I guess I was standing in your corner only it was too dark to show my point.
Those programmers that want to run PHP behing my network have to show me more than a fact that there is 10 mill. sites running PHP.

"The reason why I resurrected this topic after nearly 2 years is because I was dealing with an IT admin who claimed that he had never heard of PHP"
- I am so sorry and I only hope he is not Your admin

Bottom line is that the more programming languages you know the better programmer you are!
There is millions of people speaking chinese (=PHP) (no offence intended) but the fact I studied (or at least tried) english(=ASP) as second language sure paid off more....
So, dont worry even my collection of PHP books is growing although...I am an MIS by calling!
All the best!

> need more info?
:: don't click HERE ::

 

[sleipnir214]

lebisol:
Comparing Zend's track record over the last two years to Mi[&cent;]ro$oft's...I'll take Zend, thank you. The size of a company is no indicator of the quality of that company's code.

Why is it that you argue that PHP's popularity doesn't make it better, yet you make the point the 1000s of people lined up in the 90s to get Mi[&cent;]ro$oft certs, implying that popularity does make something better? You need to pick one interpretation or the other -- trying to use both at once weakens both. But perhaps the reason so many people got the MCSE is that it's a ridiculously easy certification to get?

And if you agree that PHP has such superior qualities as a programming language, why would you care whether your programmers can prove that 10 million other sites are really using it?

You also seem awfully confident in your assertion that many people are using PHP just to jump on some bandwagon. May I ask your source for this unique and sagacious knowledge?

And what is the point of your statement "increase PHPs popluarity without ever writing a single script"? Were I to build a better mousetrap, would I have to catch all the mice myself?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[jimoblak]

Yes, I'm nebulous in a slavic way.

Israeli Company vs. MS?

Are we critical of Israelis? Besides Zend, there is some very 'with-it' technology coming out of Israel: a lot of it is focussed on security. Go figure.

I can understand the skepticism when places like netcraft.com report how many servers have PHP installed: not how many sites really use PHP.

For my own purposes, I may simply end up making a list of corporations that use PHP on their sites. The IT admin in question seems confused at how I have created an application that goes on any platform with out any licensing cost. He has based his knowledge solely on the marketing of commercial software packages and certification programs. I know programmers that have never heard of sourceforge.net and don't realize what open source means. I spent a half hour trying to explain open source to a 20 year programmer.

Marketing has nothing to do with the usefulness of a product. I'm not against Microsoft. I simply research and use the right tools for the job.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[BlindPete]

Just a comment on this thread.

I have made an excellent living using MS products over the last 10 years. I have found MS's licsening to be an ever increasing frustration and MSDN subscriptions have had a dimishing return for me as well. That said, I very much like MS's IDEs and I have enjoyed the benefit of designing for the common platform.

All that said: I, you and all our users paid for it. But what did we get? I have no sence of direction of MS OS's or .NET other then their marketing propaganda.

So as a developer that is what I like about open source in general is the access to the developers. Not always polite but often spirited dicussions/debates where the pros and cons of design choices are parsed out. I do not feel qualified to participate in these debates but I gain superb insight on the hows and whys of the products workings.

Now for the $. Stood side by side for web related work it is very hard to beat the open source alternative. I think the real weakness (as was mentioned above) is the lack of certification. IT/CIO are reluctant to go open source because they find it diffilcult to qualify consultants or in house personnel.

What I have found is that when the customer trusts us and we can recommend an Open Source solution, stand behind the developers and software, that puts them at ease. Thats really a 5% scenario. I would never reccommend open source on a new customer unless they asked about it. Sometimes I even test the water with a well placed comment about it. The general reaction is no reaction at all.

My 2 cents

-Pete
Do you get a little guilty pleasure when a celebrity has a bad day?
Well then The Dead Pool is for you!

http://www.nowthatsodd.com/deadpool/

 

[lebisol]

sleipnir214
"Comparing Zend's track record over the last two years to.."
2 years...u put the faith of your business into some 2 years success-streak company.....no comment.

"Why is it that you argue that PHP's popularity doesn't make it better, yet you make the point the 1000s of people lined up in the 90s to get Mi¢ro$oft certs, implying that popularity does make something better"
- the point was to show that numbers dont mean much and IF they did then IIS is THE web server of the world - since almost any MS OS can be turned into one. It was not to "bust" MS quality but rather to deminish the formula:
1000 PHP sites > 1 ASP site = PHP 1000 times better

I really didn't want to "represent MS"...just wanted to say that numbers do not imply quality (much like MANY MS cert. technicans have never made through hands-on tests)
and as far as "favortisim" I think Pete has put it in better business perspective

"What I have found is that when the customer trusts us and we can recommend an Open Source solution, stand behind the developers and software, that puts them at ease. Thats really a 5% scenario. I would never reccommend open source on a new customer unless they asked about it. Sometimes I even test the water with a well placed comment about it. The general reaction is no reaction at all."

which is exactly what I take as starting point when asnswering the question "Which language should I learn 1st"
I simply research and use the right tools for the job. thank you Mr. Oblak!
Again, I am not for "blidnly" following one or the other -it is just that a lot of people start of by saying : MS=evil I am going open source:

Where am I getting the numbers?
Well, from people on the forums,my friends-programmers of 15+yrs,coworkers,random sites I find (mostly starting programmers)
sometimes (PHP) open solution is THE solution but most of the time people do not run core of their busniess on nix platforms nor Macs....so on the win32 based platfroms- Of course I would suggest "native language" ASP over PHP as i would rather find myslef in "programming issues" where I can call someone and demand a "fix" for my money vs. waitng hopefully for the new donated fix or a mod to be realsed...which is exacly why I fear free ASP components or anything that starts with "Free"....I love the word ;-) but often it backfires
"I am not rich enough to buy cheep things" is the saying that roams in slavic worlds....
Again, I hope I am not offending anyone here but my "programming attempts" are ranked on these basis:
at home:
-I try to learn PHP (and anthing elese I can get my hands-on based on GPL)
at office:
-ASP for clients
-PHP as an alternative
still, I think Mr. Oblak got close to my concepts and answers to question 'WHY use PHP and not ASP' are NOT in numbers but the logistics of the business.
If we throw in JPS in this mix this conversation could go on for years ;-)

If any of you have some real-life examples of experiences with clients if u don't mind please share them....
I posted here with 1 thing in mind:
since I am bit tired of hearing "Maaaaan, use PHP its free its better more people use it"...so I was looking to see what real programmers had to say...
Thank you for taking your time and posting your opinions!
All the best!

> need more info?
:: don't click HERE ::

 

[jimoblak]

ahem...

This thread started out comparing popularity of programming languages, not whether one was better than another. It is apparent that there are varied preferences.

I was simply wondering how to quantify how popular PHP is. It seems that the answer to this is as nebulous as my name.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[lebisol]

hahaha
hey Love hurts....and I get a lot of love from "devided PHP/ASP" programmers behind the network
All the best!

> need more info?
:: don't click HERE ::

 

[onpnt]

Is this taking into account ASP (Classic) is slowing being replaced with ASP+ (.NET) I find it a bit foolish to compare statistics on a platform that is on it's way to be the older of a companies release.



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