dams Fri Jul 20 14:11:35 2001 EDT
Added files:
/phpdoc/en/faq languages.xml
Log:
Initial Adding to faq
Index: phpdoc/en/faq/languages.xml
+++ phpdoc/en/faq/languages.xml
<chapter id="faq.languages">
<title>PHP and HTML</title>
<titleabbrev>PHP and HTML</titleabbrev>
<para>
PHP is the best language for Webbing, but what about
other languages?
</para>
<qandaset>
<qandaentry id="faq.languages.asp">
<question>
<para>PHP vs. ASP?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>
ASP is not really a language in itself, it's an acronym for Active
Server Pages, the actual language used to program ASP with is a
script version of Visual Basic. The biggest drawback of ASP is that
it's a proprietary system that is natively used only on Microsoft
Internet Information Server (IIS). This limits it's availability to
Win32 based servers. There are a couple of projects in the works
that allows ASP to run in other environments and webservers;
<ulink url="&faqurl.instantasp;">InstantASP</ulink>
from <ulink url="&faqurl.halcyon;">Halcyon</ulink> (commercial),
<ulink url="&faqurl.chilisoft.asp;">Chili!Soft ASP</ulink> from
<ulink url="&faqurl.chilisoft;">Chili!Soft</ulink>
(commercial) and <ulink url="&faqurl.openasp;">OpenASP from
ActiveScripting.org</ulink>
(free). ASP is said to be a slower
and more cumbersome language than PHP, less stable as well. Some of
the pros of ASP is that since it uses VBScript it's relatively easy
to pick up the language if you're already know how to program in
Visual Basic. ASP support is also enabled by default in the IIS
server making it easy to get up and running.
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry id="faq.languages.aspconverter">
<question>
<para>Is there an ASP to PHP converter?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>
Yes, <ulink url="&faqurl.asp2php;">asp2php</ulink> is the one most often
referred to.
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry id="faq.languages.coldfusion">
<question>
<para>PHP vs. Cold Fusion?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>
PHP is commonly said to be faster and more efficient for complex
programming tasks and trying out new ideas. PHP is generally referred
to as more stable and less resource intensive as well. Cold Fusion
has better error handling, database abstraction and date parsing
although database abstraction is being addressed in PHP 4. Another
thing that is listed as one of Cold Fusion's strengths is its excellent
search engine, but it has been mentioned that a search engine is not
something that should be included in a web scripting language. PHP
runs on almost every platform there is; Cold Fusion is only available
on Win32, Solaris, Linux and HP/UX. Cold Fusion has a better IDE
and is generally easier to get started with, whereas PHP initially
requires more programming knowledge.
</para>
<para>
A great summary by Michael J Sheldon on this topic has
been posted to the PHP mailing list. A copy can be found
<ulink url="&faqurl.coldfusion.summary">here</ulink>.
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry id="faq.languages.perl">
<question>
<para>PHP vs. Perl?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>
The biggest advantage of PHP over Perl is that PHP was designed for
scripting for the web where Perl was designed to do a lot more and can
because of this get very complicated. The flexibility / complexity
of Perl makes it easier to write code that another author / coder
has a hard time reading. PHP has a less confusing and stricter format
without losing flexibility. PHP is easier to integrate into existing
HTML than Perl. PHP has pretty much all the 'good' functionality of
Perl; constructs, syntax and so on, without making it as complicated
as Perl can be. Perl is a very tried and true language, it's been
around since the late eighties, but PHP is maturing very quickly.
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</chapter>
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