Question

I am an asp.net web developer. Recently I have recieved a job offer to write a website in php (I’ll be upgrading an already written code).

I wanted to know, how much time will it take me to learn the langauge? How different is it from asp.net? Do people usually go from asp.net to php, or is that the other way around?

Thank you

Answer 1

I’ve worked with both PHP and ASP.net, with ASP.NET being the current language of my choice.

Learning the language’s syntax and functions will be a relatively easy thing for you.
The syntax is quite similar to C, and finding functions should be easy, as the PHP documentation is very helpful, the search is incredibly useful and the community and support are great.

Getting used to the nature of PHP, being a dynamic and weak-typed language will be more difficult, perhaps.
Personally, I found it easy to get into a more restricting environment, since I went from PHP to C#.
Just a few examples, you will have to get used to the notion of arrays being able to contain multiple types of variables, associative arrays being different than Dictionary, and not having to explicitly declare variables unless configured otherwise.

You will also need to learn the drawbacks, potential problems and security issues this might cause.
However, you can choose to work in a different fashion, declaring variable types and working in an object-oriented fashion.

With that being said, it’s worth repeating the things previously mentioned–
The bare-naked PHP model resembles classic ASP more than ASP.NET.
There is no strict method of constructing a website, as opposed to the ASP.NET method of inheriting from a Page class or using ASP.NET MVC.
But if you find that too flexible, you could always use one of the many PHP frameworks, be it for MVC or any other model.