Hi everyone,
At my job,
www.MusiciansAtlas.com we have two web applications: the front-end "public site," which is where the above links to, and a back-end subscriber based Directory one.
The back-end site recently was programmed into ASP.NET - which makes sense because it's an application.
The front-end is currently written in ASP. My bosses want to redesign the front-end. I'm for that but I suggested they go into PHP. The reasoning is that it's open-sourced, powerful, easy to use and there's a lot of programmers (though I would be programming the site).
BTW, we use JavaScript, XHTML and CSS - I eventually want to go into AJAX.
The woman who did the back-end application wants to bring it into ASP.NET. I'm not crazy about the idea because I think ASP.NET is an expensive technology, the learning curve is high plus my bosses change the pages CONSTANTLY. They also like bells and whistles like FLASH, rss feeds, etc. I'm not sure how it will handle JavaScript (if at all) and AJAX.
Also, my job is prime for a CMS system - which I started programming in PHP and thought about patching in with Drupal.
I don't know ASP.NET and personally, am not crazy to learn it. It reminds me of the old days with the clunky Microsoft Desktop development application model. This is why I became a web programmer. Also, I'm leary of Microsoft because isn't this the 3rd time they reprogrammed the interface? I'm just afraid that it's not flexible design wise for constant changes to borders, page layouts, etc.
What they want on their home pages are rss fields and sample listings from the database (which I can call up in PHP).
For example, could ASP.NET have handled this page which I created entirely from a Database using Javascript & DHTML?
http://www.musiciansatlas.com/pages/jukebox2007.asp
But I have an open mind and would like to open up discussions about going PHP or ASP.NET. What are the pros & cons of each.
I'm going to post this on the PHP side and the .NET forum.
I really need guidance because I don't want to steer my bosses wrong. Plus, if they do venture into ASP.NET, I may be looking for work elsewhere as a front-end web programmer with PHP.
Donna
