jsaade
So we have one huge project at work.
We need to hire a lot of talent, and a huge debate is taking place in terms of technology.
From my point of view, technology got to a point where it is just tools that do the same job, it is only a matter of hiring people that know these tools.
For example the most important requirement is the ability to serve a lot of content to a lot of users. This means the server will be hammered with requests and responds and the database will need to cater for a huge amount of records.
Not taking into consideration the hardware, bandwidth and cost requirements, we are debating the sort of software technologies to use.
PHP vs .net The ultimate battle:
From my point of view they do the same thing only different languages, there are no advantages for using one over the other , all of the other people debating me want to go with PHP as it is open source. I am not sure how this is good or bad, the suggestion is to go with a framework like Symfony and I see that using .Net MVC does the same job and relies on a proven model.
MySQL vs SQL vs Oracle:
The main issue here is scalability and performace. I do not know anything about Oracle, but according to my research, if a poor DB architect is hired, then the DB will always be poor. It is an issue with architecture rather than technology itself as we are at a point that mySQL and SQL actually perform the same, the only problem is optimization.
What do you think?
Kassem
I've tried both PHP (and CakePHP as a framework) and the .NET stack. I would definitely go for .NET, PHP is not even an option. (I'm not going to detail why I think .NET kicks ass and PHP sucks, it's just a matter of taste and you've probably heard all the arguments that exist).
As for the DB, in case you're going to choose .NET then go for SQL Server for better support and integration.
xterm
You just answered your own question ZeRaW. It always comes down to, what is your team already competent with?
jsaade
I know xterm, the only problem is that we are actually building a local team to handle the project, so finding good and experienced talent is a bit hard. so In Lebanon, what is the most probable scenario? Advanced .Net developers or advanced PHP devs?
Although I am good in PHP, but I do not think this is a reason to go with it, they both do the same job so I do not take sides.
arithma
According to benchmarks, .Net can handle requests better than PHP (even with byte-code caching).
Either way, search for talent in performance tuning, then based your technology on that. A performance tuning expert is not going to be too useful in a foreign technology environment.
How much requests per user, and per server are we talking about here? How much coherence will there be? Can you survive "some" data loss, or is data integrity the foremost concern. All of these are questions a performance expert should ask you. (Performance experts come in many form factors: Master Developers, Scalability Experts, Performance Tuners). The differences in attitutes related to the mentioned "titles" is subtle but could mean actually a lot. It depends on whether you want someone to black out everything and start tuning an SQL query, or to design/architect/whatever your application so that it scales well to multiple hardware..
It's tricky, good luck.
jsaade
Thanks for the reply arithma.
In reality i am struggeling to find any kind of profile that would fit in the category of performance tuning and the project strict timeline requires to find an experienced profile quickly as there is no time for research.
xterm
Try not to care too much about performance, both the aforementioned technologies are capable of pulling off massive applications. Applications change depending on the load as you already know, and since your project is on a strict deadline, your only criteria at the moment is finding experience. You're competent with PHP, are you leading the project? If so, get yourself a skilled senior and together fill the remaining spots with competent PHP developers.
In any case, yes, they can both pull off the same thing, but no, they are not similar in any way. From a pure web app perspective following the mainstream mvc paradigm, yes they're virtually similar but in terms of an enterprise architecture they are not remotely similar.
jsaade
Even If I was leading (which I am not), I do not think that choosing PHP just because I know it is something good.
For Example, I can find and hire very good .Net Developers in 2-3 Days, whereas find 3-4 Good PHP Developers who excel in Symfony (as an example) is a harder task.
My role most probably would be as a technical project manager.
So in this role, I do not think I have to know the language (or languages), but I need to have strong team leaders who do that.
xterm
Could you forward me some .NET Developers? :-)