Ever since I’ve decided on taking up freelance programming as my bread and butter to get through my college expenses, I have always been slapped with the choice of which language to take as my forte. Although most of my mentors keep advising me to stay flexible, taking up knowledge on what’s hot and readily available, I still gave time and priority a single language at anyone time. I started with my web development experience with JSP mostly due to my familiarity with Java. Then I moved to ASP about 3 months ago after experiencing the speed and ease of development with .NET. Now, after experiencing WordPress, I’ve decided to pick up PHP.

Here’s my experience and rating with these platforms

Scores mean:
10 ? Best
9 ? Very Good
8 ? Good
7 ? so so
6? Be wary

Syntax
I’ll be a bit biased on this because I’m quite used to Java’s syntax. PHP admittedly was quite hard to digest at first with characters like ?->, ::? . As for ASP.NET, I’m quite familiar with VB.NET but it did take some getting used to.

J2EE: 10 ASP.NET: 8, PHP: 8

Easy to Learn
A month, that’s how long I’ve started on PHP and quite frankly I’m confident to say that I’m confident enough to say I’m well-versed with it to start writing applications. I started with several articles and ebooks and I simply couldn’t stop. ASP.NET was also easy to learn too but switching between the source and design tabs in the IDE was quite confusing at times. As for J2EE, it took me almost a year to fully grasp Java’s concept and another 6 months for JSP.

J2EE: 6, ASP.NET: 9 PHP: 10

Development Speed
ASP definitely takes the cake here because of the drag and drop capability for adding controls and objects. In PHP, if you use the right framework, it is also fast process. Netbeans has a bit of similarities when it comes to drag and drop capabilities.

J2EE: 7, ASP.NET: 10 PHP: 9

Platform
Since .NET is Windows only, it shuts off other potential customers. I’ve read that PHP works best on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), but since I’m having troubles with running an Apache server on my linux box I’m currently using Windows as a development platform. Works fine so far and I have no qualms about how my scripts perform on Linux. As for J2EE, you can run it on any Java enabled device, even Blackberry phones.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 8 PHP: 9

Database

I use MySQL for PHP and J2EE and MSSQL (as default) on ASP.NET

-null score-

IDE ? Integrated Development Environments
ASP.NET can be developed only on Visual Studio. Nice but pricey. I’m stuck with Netbeans for J2EE because it eases some of the redundant coding and it runs on both my windows and linux bux. For PHP I use PHP Coder.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 9

OOP ? Object Oriented Support
J2EE and ASP.NET FTW. I still have to get the workins of PHP mastered.
J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 10, PHP:7

Security
Security is the best asset J2EE has to offer. I haven’t heard any complaints from my former clients about security breaches with my works. ASP.NET is dependent on the OS’s security (so if you’re running scripts with an unsecure server installation you’re screwed). As with PHP, I’m still reading up on how security breaches can occur so I’m not quite sure how to rate it.

J2EE: 10 ASP.NET: 9, PHP: 9

Performance

Simply WOW for PHP although I have only tested it with small applications for now. J2EE has my vote as well because it can handle swarms of connections without visible performance hitches. For ASP.Net I’ve only developed small scale applications so it’s hard to rate again.
J2EE: 10 , ASP.NET: 7, PHP: 10

Web Server
ASP.NET is stuck with MS’s IIS. For PHP and J2EE, there’s Apache the choice for PHP, Sun AS, JBoss AS, Oracle AS my choice for J2EE, Weblogic, Tomcat.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 6, PHP: 10

Support and Community
I’ve seen lots of people developing for all 3 platforms and I’ve never had a problem that couldn’t be solve with a quick search on the web.

J2EE: 10, ASP.NET: 10, PHP: 10

Cost

PHP = free. No question about that. For J2EE, there’s the choice of cost or performance. It mainly depends on your preference and needs. ASP.NET entails the price ofVisual Studio and Windows Server.

J2EE: 9, ASP.NET: 8, PHP: 10

Conclusion
All platforms have pros and cons with ASP being the kindest for newbies in development, php for cost and performance, and j2EE for performance and security. I won’t be encouraging anyone to go for one over the other. In the end the choice really depends on the type of web development you are doing and the budget you can allocate on it, although I’m quite sure personal preference can also be included in that criteria.