PHP Vs ROR. Which You Should Choose?

“Both PHP and Ruby on Rails are widely accepted technologies of the industry but what makes them differ from each other is their age or experience in the industry. PHP is an old language that was brought to the industry with a high vision and ambition to challenge the monopoly of technologies like Java and .NET. With its inception, the industry found an outstanding product that can help in building highly economic and powerful web applications using PHP in less time and effort as compared to JSP or ASP. On the contrary, Ruby on Rails is a technology that born recently to provide better customization offerings along with quality modern features to grasp the attention of web developers in the industry. RoR has received a remarkable popularity from the industry due to its highly flexible and easy approach to handle complicated web situations among the web developers. Though, both these technologies are serving the web industry with utmost care still there are few uniqueness and loopholes present and those make them differ from each other. Here are how?”

Ease of use and implement: Undoubtedly PHP has an outstanding track record of being easy-to-code for the developers. The syntax of PHP is extremely easy to remember for a web developer due to their similarities with real life words. Hence, PHP has been treated as the best choice for fresher and newbie who want to kick start their career in the web industry. On the contrary, Ruby on Rails has very much similar syntax as that of PHP. In fact, most of its syntaxes are highly similar-to and inspired-from PHP syntax itself; but, the difference is the code length. Since Ruby on Rails is more than a language and indeed it is a language-framework combo, hence it provides enough libraries, classes and functions to make the development process not only faster but also effective. With its inbuilt functions and libraries, the developer finds it easy to write Ruby codes over the Rails framework in a hassle free way.

Performance prospective: Performance is one of the important criteria while choosing a technology from its peers. As a core language, PHP always stands ahead in terms of performance when compared to Ruby on Rails. In PHP, everything is at a lower degree of complexity and it’s the task of the developer to make it perfect with his coding experience, expertise and efficiency. RoR, on the other hand, has incorporated functions and classes which might make the coding experience better; but when we consider the performance, it will definitely fall behind PHP. How? Suppose there is a function in RoR for sorting an array of inputs; when the Ruby developer writes the corresponding method on the platform (IDE); the platform tries to find out the library or file within which the method definition is present. Then, the pointer moves to that method for definition and executes the sorting operation. On the other hand, same operations can be directly called from the inline function in PHP; this reduces the unnecessary instructions to fetch the location and method definition from a remote place. As a result, the process becomes more efficient and effective and the performance is amplified.

Systematic approach: Planning makes an operation near to perfection if not the perfect. Hence, in the industry planning is always given more priority for any web project. It helps in assuming and estimating approximate risk, resources and problems that may require more attention from the developers. So, it is always better to get prepared for the situation in advance than to face it during the development process as a surprise. In this perspective, Ruby on Rails looks prominent and promising as compared to PHP due to its intrinsic architecture that encourages Ruby developers in crafting efficient web applications in a systematic approach. Its core architecture always helps in creating web solutions in an efficient and systematic procedure to avoid unnecessary stress, burden and chances of failures in the application development project. With PHP, this is absolutely not possible without the experience and high effort from the web developer. Here, there is no predefined and trusted approach to move-on in the development process rather the PHP developer needs to design and define the approach by him. This is the biggest disadvantage of any language as against a framework. Though, PHP developers can make this possible with the help of enterprise standard PHP frameworks like zend, symfony, laravel and cakePHP, etc.; but this is not possible with the core PHP language.

Scalability is a concern: Agile methodology has received incredible popularity in the industry due to its on-the-spot productivity. With agile methodology, a web application comes to the live stage from the very beginning with less features but that enables it to be productive for any business. With PHP and RoR this is possible; but what makes them different is the approach. PHP needs extensive coding to make an application development process to be scalable; whereas RoR is already provided by its inbuilt architecture for this purpose which is highly reliable and tested one.

Productivity: With RoR, the Ruby developer becomes much more productive as compared to any PHP web developer who works on PHP core language. This is nevertheless to say that, a language is usually low in productive as compared to any framework due to presence of the in-build smart IDE, plug-ins, in-built methods and modules within the platform. And these features severely help web developers in building enterprise standard web solutions on the fly.

Resource availability: Availability of resources makes sense if they are open source and free. Fortunately, both the technologies are free and open source; but, the amount of resources available for PHP is simply way ahead to that of RoR. This is due to its old age and more experience in the industry. These resources can definitely help PHP developers in getting their job done with less effort and time by little modification or twist to the existing source code from the web.

Future ready: Both PHP and RoR support all types of modern amenities including mobile friendly app development using HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery etc. Along with that, Cloud support, cross platform design, and responsive app development is possible; but these can be easily handled in RoR due to presence of inherent plug-ins and modules while it needs some extra effort from the PHP developers in creating the required atmosphere by themselves.

Final words: Keeping all above perquisites of RoR, it is clear that, Ruby on Rails dominates PHP in almost every sector; but we must understand the limitations of PHP as a language as compared to a language-framework combo i.e. RoR.

PHP or ASP .NET, Which Is Better?

“No programming language is the best- it’s the programmer who constructs and adds value to an application! It’s not just about PHP or ASP, it holds good for every technology of the industry. Wise people understand the fact that, every technology comes with some advantages and disadvantages; still the debate continues among themselves as well! Why? This is yet madness for their love and showing patriotism to their beloved technology. Now, we are asked to plot a comparison between PHP and ASP .Net and provide a conclusion for the better one of these! ”

Better- The term itself perplexing for an IT professional! Everybody knows Java is super fast; but JavaScript is blazing fast with many drawbacks against Java- still we compare. Everyone knows Ruby on Rails is a framework and hence helps in creating awesome web apps on the fly that is never possible in a language. Still, we compare RoR with PHP! We dare to do this, knowing the fact that it is really not going to finish off anything. The reality is that every language or technology comes with some immense features along with few loopholes. Again, every language seems to be perfect from an angle of prospective and necessities; whereas it falls far behind the client’s demand from another angle. So, no one is the qualified person to judge any technology without knowing the prerequisite of the developer. Here we are daring to compare PHP with ASP .Net on the basis of few eminent circumstances of the client or the developer.

PHP for cost sensitive projects; ASP .Net for quality oriented web applications: PHP and ASP .Net both are web domain specific technologies and serving the industry for more than a decade with uninterrupted enhancements in their features. The most important difference that strikes to a tech savvy guy is the cost of development in both technologies. PHP is an open source language with enormous features to contribute in blending awesome web applications; on the contrary, Microsoft demands some premium from the developers to get the charm of awesomeness and the secured web environment. Due to open source nature PHP is undoubtedly a first preference for low cost web application development projects; because the cost of development is directly proportional to the cost of software, cost of application developer, cost of server and infrastructure cost. Along with that, the time of development also affects the cost of project, which is less with PHP as compared to ASP .Net. Hence if your budget is limited then you can definitely go with PHP web application development; on the contrary, if you want life-size features and superior quality web application at the cost of your hard earned money, then choose ASP .Net.

Development time is a criterion: Though, development time comes at the second position while choosing any technology, but for me it is a silly stuff to discuss at this point. You may ask why? PHP is a web domain language that helps in crafting beautiful web applications with its core features and libraries whereas ASP .Net is a fully loaded framework for .Net developers. It needn’t to portray that a framework helps in diminishing the programmer effort as well as project duration as against any language. In fact, frameworks are made to make the development process easier and quicker with the inbuilt classes, modules and libraries that are used to make the code length smaller yet efficient. Hence, with ASP .Net, the development time of any web application will be definitely lesser as compared to PHP if both the applications are of equivalent standard. But again, if you can compromise on the quality of the application, then the development time of PHP will drastically decrease over ASP .Net. So it depends upon the clause that you must aware of before choosing the technology.

Achievement of scalability should be considered: Are you looking for a highly scalable web application? If yes choose ASP .Net blindly. For most of the top notch web applications, scalability plays an important role in the development process, whereas it is absolutely ignored for low cost or static web applications. Scalability is the nature of the web application that enables it to accustom with the ever changing demands of the industry. So premium websites are developed with scalability as the biggest priority and the choice is ASP .Net.

Are you looking for availability of free and open source resources! We can’t neglect the potential of free and open source technology in the form of availability of resources over the web. In fact, many developers rely on these resources in order to make the development process not only quicker but also efficient enough. With a little tweak in codebase of these free resources, a smart web developer can easily make it fit to be integrated with his web application. In this process, the time of development decreases significantly and hence the productivity increases. We must aware of the fact that this is only possible with an open source language like PHP. So, the PHP developer can take the help of third party software tools and modules in designing his web application on the fly. On the contrary, for ASP .Net developers, the resources are quite limited. In reality, Microsoft never encourages ASP .Net developers to rely on any third party free codebase at any cost.

Performance with ASP .Net mostly takes over PHP: ASP .Net is quite popular in the industry for its highly optimized libraries and modules that are already available within the framework. These libraries and modules are highly optimized to make the application not only faster but also stable. On the contrary PHP as a language provides only the core functionalities and hence not as much helpful as ASP .Net in crafting high performance web applications. Though a smart PHP developer can also develop enterprise standard high performance web solutions; but he has to put a lot of effort as compared to that of an ASP .Net developer.

Security with ASP .Net is better; but it all depends how the programmer codes: As a compiled language, ASP .Net stands over PHP while we consider the security level of the language. Complied languages are by default provides additional boost to the security of the application due to their binary code conversion during the compilation process. On the other hand PHP, an interpreted language can never achieve that level of securities as that of any compiled language like Java or ASP .Net.

From above discussion, we can come to a conclusion that PHP is for those who want a quick and low cost web application that doesn’t require so much power and securities; whereas ASP .Net is for everyone who don’t care much for the development cost over the quality of the end product.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing offshore software development services in both PHP and ASP.NET with equal competence and delighting customers nevertheless. If you have a software development task that needs expertise in PHP or ASP.NET or both then send in your requirements to sale at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

A Look at PHP Frameworks That Might Rule 2015

A number of recent surveys have highlighted that PHP is the most popular server-side scripting language of 2015. Unlike other programming languages, PHP is easy to understand, read and edit. It also enables programmers to accomplish programming tasks without writing longer lines of code. The developers can further use PHP frameworks to curtail the coding time, and facilitate long-term maintenance. As a programmer has option to choose from several PHP frameworks, it is important for him to understand the most useful PHP frameworks.

8 Most Useful PHP Frameworks for Web Developers for 2015

1) Laravel: Laravel is hugely popular among PHP developers due to its great features. It is also built on top of a number of PHP components. So the well tested and reliable code provides a solid foundation to the web applications. Laravel also makes it easier for developers to create modern internet applications by availing features like beautiful templating, Restful Routing, powerful queue library, painless routing, and simple authentication.

2) Phalcon: As a high-performing PHP framework, Phalcon makes it easier for developers to build MVC applications. As it is implemented as a C-extension, Phalcon further offer high performance, while consuming lower resource. Phalcon can be used by programmers for creating single-module, multi-modules and micro applications. At the same time, it also comes with several innovative features like template engine, event management, encryption, validation, Forms Builder, and Flash Messages.

3) Symfony: The popular full-stack PHP framework, which is built on top of Symfony components, enables developers to rapidly create a variety of websites and internet applications. Along with being flexible, stable and sustainable, Symfony is also much faster than other PHP frameworks. At the same time, Symfony allows developers to easily combine a variety of components and parts according to their specific requirements.

4) CodeIgniter: Despite being a powerful PHP framework, CodeIgniter has a very small footprint. As it is open source, CodeIgniter can be used by enterprises without increasing project overheads. It complements the needs of developers who want to build full-featured web applications by using a simple toolkit. The elegant toolkit provided by CodeIgniter enables developers to rapidly build modern websites and internet applications.

5) Yii: In addition to being a high-performing PHP framework, Yii is also fast and secure. It further loads only the features required by the developers. Yii also comes with a powerful caching system, MVC, DAO/ActiveRecord, and testing. It further enables programmers to create secure web application by availing features like input validation, output filtering, and prevention of SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks.

6) CakePHP: CakePHP is designed with features to make web application development simpler and faster. It also does not require programmers to write longer lines of code. The developers can avail the code generation and scaffolding features of the framework to build prototypes rapidly. Also, they can simply setup the database, and start development without using XML or YAML files. CakePHP further allows them to use built-in batteries for database access, caching, translation, authentication and validation.

7) Zend Framework 2: As a popular PHP framework, Zend enables developers to rapidly build high-performing and modern web applications. It also provides building blocks that can be seamlessly combined with other frameworks and applications. The developers can further adapt Zend easily according to their specific needs. They also have option to use secure and cryptographic coding tools provided by Zend.

8) FuelPHP: FuelPHP is hugely popular among PHP developers as a simple and flexible MVC framework. However, unlike other MVC frameworks, FuelPHP enables developers to create a layer between the View and the Controller through the ViewModels or presentation models. At the same time, it also supports a router-based approach. The community-driven framework further allows both experienced PHP programmers and beginners to participate in the project.

On the whole, a programmer has option to choose from several open source and commercial PHP frameworks. So he must compare the frameworks according to the web application’s features and functionality. At the same time, he also needs to choose a framework that supports the most recent version of the widely used server-side scripting language. To get maximum benefits of PHP, you may consider hiring services of a PHP web development company India.

We provide custom PHP web development services. If you would like to talk one of our certified PHP programmers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.