There are three choices for building a custom software development field career, such as PHP, ASP.NET, and Java. Java remains the choice of few due to its complexity and learning curve. The most preferred these days are PHP and ASP.NET. Learning both is easy and the job market is pretty good, with positive job opportunities and career outlook.
The question however is which of the two is a better option when it comes to a successful career in the IT industry? People who are in the custom application development field have different opinions as to which is better career-wise. Both do have credits, and thus are great choices when it comes to a career in Information Technology. It really boils down to your enthusiasm and interest in the technology, and which is more convenient for you to learn.
Let us explore these two languages to help you determine which is a better option for you.
ASP.NET Language
Besides being a platform for web development, ASP.NET further provides an extensive software infrastructure, a programming model, as well as other services that are compulsory to build robust web applications for desktops and for mobiles. First released in January 2002, it’s language-independent, meaning that developers could use any .NET supported language to build apps. C# and VB.NET are the two most common languages to write applications. C# was introduced along with the .NET framework, while VB.net is based directly on Visual Basic. ASP.NET offers excellent support for CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. Programmers could write code with any language supported by .NET due to its being built on the CLR or the Common Language Runtime. The framework is used largely for creating dynamic web pages.
The language has a quicker and lighter way of combining server code with HTML. Writing down elegant websites that adhere to the latest standards could be done easily by developers. Moreover, it helps link to social media websites and adds videos.
PHP Programming Language
The journey of this popular language started as a project that’s small and open-source that has evolved over the years. There are many popular databases that could be efficiently incorporated with PHP code. Typically, the code is processed by a PHP interpreter that’s implemented as a web server module.
The interpreted and executed code results are combined in a web server, which could be any kind, like images. PHP execution works even smoother when compiled as a module of Apache on the Unix side. Moreover, the programming language supports a significant amount of major protocols, including IMAP, POP3, and LDAP. For the first time, in PHP’s ecosystem, the added Java support, as well as the distributed object architectures make the developments of several tiers a reality.
PHP has lots of open-source and free libraries. Basically, it’s an internet-aware system that has in-built modules to access FTP servers and numerous database servers.
What’s the Difference?
PHP is an open-source programming language used mainly for web-based apps development. For writing desktop applications, there are various tools you can use, but most of the apps written in PHP run on a web server. PHP is a programming language, while .NET on the other hand is an entire platform, which consists of a few various technologies.
With .NET, there are two main languages you can use for creating web apps or desktop apps, which are as mentioned above C# and VB.NET. The same with PHP, .NET also need a web server for building web apps. While ASP.ENT is built into Microsoft Windows, .NET desktop apps could be run on Linux with Mono, a free, open-source product.
Sometimes, PHP comes pre-installed on Linux, otherwise, it’s easy and quick to install. To develop either platform, however, there are several free tools that you need. For PHP, there are various options, and Eclipse is one popular choice. .NET on the other hand, you could use free Visual Studio Express Microsoft products.
Which one is for you? Certainly, you could check out entry-level jobs for .NET and PHP in your locality. The data could influence you on what to go for. However, that research would only reveal the present scenario. Five years from now, what would the scenario be?
Some Questions to help You decide
Do you want to build Windows desktop apps? .NET is the way to go then.
Do you want to create web apps on Windows? .NET again is a great choice. You could however do PHP on Windows, but it’s probably more used commonly on Linux.
Do you love Linux and want to concentrate on it? Then you should go for PHP if you do web development.
What about Linux desktop apps? You probably would want to move away from both and check out other technologies and languages.
Both PHP and .NET are great languages that custom software developers want to master. This is because both include big community support with experienced and professional developers. PHP has been around for some time now, thus the availability of a huge community of developers comes as no surprise.
.NET, in the same way, includes a big community of developers and unites engineers from small and medium, to big-scale organizations. Meaning that any concerns during development could be resolved with the community support.
Programmers in a custom software development company feel comfortable with an easy to maintain the language. In the ever-evolving environment, business requirements randomly change, thus, it would be good to choose a language that at any stage could be updated.
The features of .NET and PHP stand behind their demands in web development, thus they’re preferred in custom software development. Furthermore, these languages help all kinds of organizations to extend to the next level of their businesses. As your programming knowledge and skills become more advanced, picking new languages becomes easier.
Conclusion
When choosing which career path is for you, keep in mind that PHP and ASP.NET are both winners. Your choice again really depends on which technology you prefer working with. Whatever your choice is, rest assured that both languages are in-demand and important in the IT field, and thus, a lot of businesses and organizations require software solutions that are built on either of the two, thus you could enjoy a promising career that provides you a lot of opportunities for growth as well.
Author Bio:Â
Morgan is an IT Consultant at TatvaSoft Australia. Which is a Custom Application Development Service provider in Australia.From an IT background, he likes to share informative and insightful articles, blogs about the development of mobile apps. His passion is to help the organization in all its shapes.