php Vs VB.Net / c# from a business perspective

[MossyUK]

This is a question I have been asking myself lately and have no real conclusion. From a business perspective - ie potential for getting jobs / contracts in the UK market (north west specifically) - is it worth persuing php as a viable skill for business?

I like php, i like the language syntax, the ease of use, the power of the language and the fact I have about 5 years experience with it in home / small-business (my own business) use makes it the easier option.

But at work (yes, my own business is more of a hobby) the developers use VB and c#. After having lengthy discussions with the older and wiser vb programmer, I decided I should probably learn windows specific coding but I hate ASP as I find it complicated and fiddly and I can get the same job done much easier in php.

Looking around the web though, languages such as VB and c# have a much greater demand. This is a long term plan by the way - as sort of a career restructure over the next 5 years.

Any thoughts - is it worth persuing vb (specifically) further, or would you choose c# OR just continue with php? I hate the thought of starting again from scratch, but if I have too, I would probably prefer vb just from briefly reading about the syntax.

Help

 

[growse]

Ok, first things first. ASP != ASP.NET. If you don't know the difference, go and read. Yes ASP is crap, but .NET is really quite good for doing certain things.

Also, there's a lot more behind the decision about what a firm will develop in than just what the devs want to do. If your company has a huge raft of support contracts with microsoft, they your servers are going to be microsoft-based and it makes sense to develop web stuff in .NET against IIS, because you're shelling a lot out for support. On the other hand, if you've got contracts supporting RHEL, it's unlikely you're going to be able to do any .NET coding.

On top of that a development manager has to look at what's good in the market. PHP might be great, but if all the php devs out there looking for jobs are crap, and the .net devs are amazing, it makes sense to build .net stuff.

I started out doing web stuff in Perl. I loved it. Thought microsoft was evil and I could take over the world with regular expressions. I looked at php, decided it was inferior to perl and stuck with it.

Then I got a job at a large company doing dev work.

When I found out that all their stuff was microsoft, and I would have to bug-fix .net stuff, I was shocked. I spent many a naive lunch sitting down with my collegues saying "But why does the company go microsoft, it doesn't have to be this way!". I realised pretty fast why they did it, and it's fairly sensible. I had no choice but to learn .Net, fairly fast. I'm now at a point where I can develop web applications in php (though I hate it), perl and .net. If I ever move to a company where they use apache webservers, I won't be completely alien to how they work. The reason .net has a big demand now is because a lot of companies are microsoft-houses because they offer pretty damn good support (for the right price, but companies tend to spend a lot on support).

At the end of the day, a good dev is a good dev regardless of what language they know. If you know your way around a language, it is a very long way from going back to basics to pick up another one. Programatic techniques are mostly transferrable and common across all languages. By learning a new language, you're not learning how to program again, you're just learning the way in which that language does things. I'd say deffinately pick up c#.net and see what it's like. The VB/C# divide is a difficult one, and there are good arguments on both sides. I prefer c# as it seems more natural and flexible.

Don't forget, if you pick up a language, doesn't mean you have to drop all the others you know

 

[~J~]

^- y'see comments like that make my happy. Damn good sensible answer, none biased, to the point and spot on.