The LAMP Attack

The debate about using an object-oriented framework for Web development versus the Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP stack anchored by a scripting language rages on. Last week, Microsoft Senior Program Manager Joe Stagner, who writes PHP and ASP.NET code and claims to love them both, blogged about his unofficial (non-Microsoft sanctioned) findings:

“ASP.NET is universally faster than PHP (on Windows and on Linux) with the exceptions of File Copy and Attribute operations.

MySQL Access from PHP on Linux is a TINY bit faster than SQL Server access on Windows (assuming common data types and SELECT statements) but probably not enough to matter.

ASP.NET (C#) operations, object use, library calls, etc. are SIGNIFICANTLY faster that the PHP equivalents.”

What?!!!! Our news editor, Jeffrey Schwartz, investigated these claims further, getting Zend’s Andi Gutmans and Stagner himself to weigh in. You can read his article, “PHP Versus ASP.NET Benchmarks Drive Debate,” here.

After the backlash, Stagner clarified his findings today, back-peddling a bit in his blog, “PHP Linux Windows ASP.NET Performance – Redux !”

There have also been some interesting developments on the model-view-controller front. ASP.NET MVC 1.0, released in April, did not make it into Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1. After all the fanfare about the potential successor to WebForms, this raised some concern, but the Microsoft team released an out of band installer on CodePlex in early June.

Late last month, the team introduced ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 1. Preview 1 added some features that are similar to concepts in ASP.NET Dynamic Data, namely support for data annotations and templated helpers, which is largely the same as field templates in ASP.NET Dynamic Data, according to Microsoft. The team also introduced an “areas” concept that enables developers to divide large Web applications into isolated projects.

ASP.NET MVC 2 Preview 2 will be in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, according to project lead Phil Haack. On the to-do-list are client validation, strongly typed input and link helpers and asynchronous controller actions. Microsoft is not committing to a timeframe for these features, but ASP.NET MVC 2 will RTM along with the Visual Studio 2010 RTM, according to Haack.

In case you missed it, Rob Conery, hired by Microsoft to work on the ASP.NET team and creator of data access tooling SubSonic 3 for ASP.NET MVC (T4 templates), is leaving Microsoft. Conery blogged earlier this week:

“I’ve made the tough decision to leave Microsoft and go back to working for myself. My last day is August 28th.”

With the push for Entity Framework and effort to get ASP.NET Dynamic Data and ASP.NET MVC enterprise ready, did Microsoft’s interest in SubSonic subside along with LINQ to SQL? What’s your take on the ASP.NET versus PHP debate? Express your thoughts below or drop me a line at krichards@reddevnews.com

Posted by Kathleen Richards on 08/13/2009 at 11:50 AM