ASP 6 Coded Site convert to (PHP || ASP.NET)

[theEclipse]

Hello,

My company is an entirely web based busisness all coded with a commerce server and msSql back-end to our asp6 coded website and CMS. We have a web based manager system for the website and in there is also scheduling for the IT on call and more and more.

The problem is that the site was originally coded by a 3rd party asp developer that didnt really seem to know how to write comments or efficient code. (Ex....an include that just includes another file....).

Soloution (Ug....) The site needs to be redesigned. No question there. They are considering two different paths as to where to head with the redesign coding: 1) Stay with IIS, MsSql and Commerce server and move to Asp.net or 2) Start a slow migration process twards PHP, mySql, (either an in house design buying system or osCommerce), and even eventually Apache and maybe on a Linux server set of some sort.

Just wondering what some people from the PHP world think about the different pros/cons of switching to either.

Robert Carpenter
"You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness." - C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)

robert (at) robertcarpenter (dot) net

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[sleipnir214]

Why does it have to be all Microsoft or no Microsoft?

You have a MSSQL server, and probably the in-house experience to manage it. The same with IIS.

Why not just run PHP on IIS and use MSSQL as the database backend?

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[theEclipse]

I mean not to imply that it has to be one or the other. I see a benefit in the cost of non microsoft products tho.

I suppose I was tryiny to point out the portability of php there.....

Robert Carpenter
"You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness." - C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)

robert (at) robertcarpenter (dot) net

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[sleipnir214]

The strength of platform agnosticism is that we are not tied to any particular vendor's production environment. The problem with platform agnosticism is that we can, if we aren't careful, decide on a production platform that leaves our experience base behind. When we have looming deadlines on a project and our programming team is still learning the eccentricities of our system, this will add stress on everyone, regardless of how good the new environment is.



My personal opinion is that you can have a lot more success running PHP on a unix-like OS because to my experience it is a lot easier to get PHP compiled and configured exactly the way I want it.


I also prefer PHP in an Apache environment. There is some functionality (not a lot, but some) that only works when running PHP as an Apache module.


I think, though, that you and your fellow developers may get the bends switching from MSSQL to MySQL. I like MySQL, but if you're used to the feature-rich environment of MSSQL, it's hard to leave that functionality behind. MySQL 5.x should fix a lot of the "functionality gap" between MySQL and other RDBMSes like MSSQL and Oracle. But you can get a lot of that functionality right now by taking a look at the "other" free RDBMS, PostgreSQL.

Keep in mind, too, that even if you're running PHP on a Linux box under Apache, you can still access your old MSSQL box. I have had good success using FreeTDS on Linux to have PHP access a MSSQL database.

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