[thelist] Linux/PHP/MySQL advantages over WinNT/ASP/MSSQL?

[Lauri Väin]

Scott,
> This is going to sound like a "sitting on the fence" response

Any type of response is fine by me - I want to gather as many opinions as
possible.

> but at this
> point, it all comes down to the developers and sysadmins, not the platforms
> themselves.

You're right!

> The real question is, what's the level of expertise you have to work with
> there?

I currently "play" around with the intranet site. Soon, we'll be opening the
internet site. The intranet site, I'm adding information to is pretty much form
based, my hands are totally tied up. The design and ASP backend coding came from
a third-party company before I got my current job. At that stage it was thought
that every employee would insert the information needed themselves. This however
didn't work out, so they hired me(somebody has to go on peoples nerves so that
they'd provide the information :-)).
I don't want to run to the design company to ask them to re-code something every
time somebody needs a form based survey, poll, order form or something like
that, as it would be extremely time-consuming (Would they code the things needed
right away? You wish! ). As many employees want stuff like I just mentioned, it
would be easier if I could code the things needed myself.
I know PHP (I chose to learn it instead of ASP as PHP is open-source and it's
free). The WinNT version of PHP is not as bug-free as the *nix version is si
Linux would be better than WinNT. And no, I don't have the time to learn ASP (as
I'm 16 years old and still go to school and I have some hobbys too - on of my
hobbys is my work, I love it!) nor do I want to learn it as it's not
cross-platform (If somebody can provide good arguments in favor of ASP, please
contact me personally at optima at hot.ee)
Linux is also a lot more stable (in my opinion) as it has been around longer.
And no, I don't want to turn this into a holy OS war - this was my opinion and
it stays that way (in case anybody can say why WinNT is better than *nix
platform, mail me directly optima at hot.ee).

> Or is the main office providing the human gurus along with the boxes?

The main office is in Sweden and I'm here in Estonia. We buy our own boxes and
we have our own gurus. Still, the guys at the main office want move towards a
Microsoft based standard in their offices worldwide.


Sorry for the poisonous attitude towards MS, but I'm a sucker for
cross-platform, cross-browser solutions.

And again, please don't turn it into a holy-OS war, in case you want to do that,
take it off list (you can find my e-mail at the bottom of the mail)

Thanks!

Yours,
Lauri Väin
--
optima at hot.ee