I was talking with friend last night, he's a MSCE, I said I was just starting in PHP and he said I was wasting my time, that PHP had not future, that I should look into ASP with...are you ready for this? MS SQL server .... AAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! , *cough*! sorry, well anyways, he said PHP was dead and that it was a complete waste of time trying to learn it.

Any comments?

Tell him that apache can dynamically convert ASP files to PHP with the command

$ asp2php IWishIKnewPhp.asp

And that Apache does not serve asp.
And that MS SQL Server does not serve php.
And Apache is the most widely used web server.
And BTW how many SQL database programs can asp interface with?
And how many can PHP interface with?
And MS SQL Server runs Perl 5.
Who's making concessions to free software now?

And knowing any serverside scripting languange will make it a lot easier to learn anotherone should the php die out.

However i have no doubts that php won't last for a long time.
It's easier to learn and a lot more fun to code in.

Maybe it's true PHP won't last, but to say the future of RDBMS is MS Sql Server?.

How many tetrabytes can SQL server handle anyway?

Microsoft says that the future of RDBMS is MS SQL server. No-one else says that though.

Oracle is the king of RDBMS and OORDBMS by a long way, and they are porting everything to Linux.

To be honest, the future of RDBMS is OODBMS!!

It depends on how you index and cluster data to what performance you'll get. Limits on the size of records and the overall size of the database in terabytes can be found out from DBMS company sites.

Oracle is not the king of DMBS for nothing though and MS SQL server is small fry in real and preformance terms next to Oracle Webserver.

Bert

Ever heard of ChilliSoft ASP

BTW: I'm a supporter of PHP and prefer it over ASP, because:

1) It's open-source, there for development time is usually shorter.
2) It's supported by more RDBMS's.
3) Regular free updates.
4) It's base on the syntax of C and a bit of Perl (although don't expect it be as powerful or complex as them).
5)It's supported by Apache without required third-party add-ons.

Chillisoft ASP is fine but it's not GPLd. You would use this technology to integrate with a legacy system or because your developer couldn't learn PHP.

Couldn't find a price for ChilliSoft ASP but (taking an RMS style stance) it's an overpriced concession to a proprietary technology.

There's no native support for ASP on Apache, but no-one's too bothered by it. MS SQL Server runs Perl5 by default.

To tell the truth, I had a web-enabled db up and running in an hour yesterday using MS Frontpage and MS Access with MS ASP but it's not an elegant solution, it's deeply coupled (can't separate the db from the interface) and it's unwieldy. I'm not sure it will scale well either.

For the home or (very) small business user, that's a great solution, as MS know the limitations of their software. But I doubt they are regarded as direct competitors of DB2, Sybase and Oracle.

Bert

ASP is a Micro$oft technologie, so it is unsafe and unrealiable.
Worst,you need IIS to run the all new version of ASP (and IIS is a bad server)
Ever heard of nimda/code red? I know at least 3 web based games that have been "destroyed" by these worm, attacking M$ server running asp.

Tell your friend Apache is here to stay and PHP with it.
And ask him to stop listening what Bill Gates says.

I haven't written any PHP but I've seen people do nice stuff with it. I use Java as a sort of "swiss army knife."

I Haven't tried JSP's http://java.sun.com/products/jsp yet but thats what I would try if I wanted to do something like PHP. You can serve up JSP's with Apache Tomcat http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/index.html

I would not rely on M$ because I like accessible source code, but C# may compete with Java in the future, especially if the mono project is a success: http://go-mono.org