PHP? ASP?... what is the BEST combo?

[mc71]

Hi everyone,

I am a first time poster to AS.org forums. I love the site!

I have a question for any experienced programmer who are familar with dynamic content and flash. I come from a design background and have been using Flash since it incubated from Future Splash to Flash. I have been writing my own slop code since Flash 4, when I "discovered" actionscripting. I am now looking into creating more robust content for my projects. I don't know ANYTHING about databases and only a fraction more about accessing them.

what is the best language to focus on... I am hearing PHP and ASP alot. I want to nail one down and get a firm grasp on it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

For example... if you were making a Flash Site for a band... the band wanted to post from their tour every few days and comment on their shows... how would you approach this using Flash? Wouldn't this require PHP or ASP? Is it possible to set them up a web interface to WRITE the posting to a database(not ftp) and then access this from Flash? Is this an ASP/PHP thing?

Sorry I am so NEWB on this, just trying to get it straight. Any comments would be much appreciated. Thank You.

Matt

[Cota]

Though I am an ASP guy myself, I would suggest PHP, simply because of server limitations with ASP. ASP requires a windows host, which arent always cheap. PHP will run on most hosts. Plus, PHP is still evolving, so its offering more and more flexibility.

[petefs]

ASP has some great stuff, but PHP is probably best for you to get your feet wet especially if you're not already immersed in an IIS/.NET framework).

A very popular setup today is known as LAMP. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. If you're a die-hard windows guy or don't want to set up a separate box for your server, you could of course use WAMP (replace Linux with Windows ; ) ). I suggest that for your live sites you go with LAMP. Most shared hosting nowadays uses the LAMP setup because it's inexpensive and flexible, so I suggest trying some tutorials based in PHP/MySQL. There are a variety of tutorials on Flash/PHP/MySQL integration on these sites:

this one ( http://www.actionscript.org/ )
http://www.sephiroth.it/
http://www.flash-db.com/

I'm sure there are plenty others -- I learned most of my basics from sephiroth ^^

Good luck, and have fun!

[freddycodes]

ASP has some great stuff, but PHP is probably best for you to get your feet wet especially if you're not already immersed in an IIS/.NET framework).


Only so noone gets misled. ASP is not .NET.

I would also venture to go out on a limb and actually say that if you had a .NET env at your disposable, ASP.NET, not regular ASP would have an equally easy learning curve as PHP.

I know both very well, and I get things done much faster in ASP.NET.

[petefs]

Good point freddy, for the last month or so I've been awfully nondescript and/or in everything that comes out of my mouth/fingers :b

What you say is what I meant to say. Agreed ^_^