The subtitle of this blog is “As Much PHP As Humanly Possible”, and it turns out that it couldn’t be more appropriately named.
Although my first ventures into the world of creating database-driven websites were using the great Apache/PHP/MySQL combination, a few months ago I took a job building a website for a friend/client with the intention of using IIS/Asp.Net 2.0/SQL 2005.
It’s turned out to be a great learning experience, and I’m glad to have the extra skills in this area.
But something happened today that hastened my return to the open-source way of doing things. I’ll call it ‘absolute necessity’.
You see, when we first discussed overhauling the existing static HTML site, my original intention was to rebuild it using PHP with a MySQL database, which, as you know, is a good thing. However, to address some concerns about possible security breaches passed on to friend/client by the person in charge of the current web-hosting, I suggested that perhaps it was time to switch to a hosting company that had moved out of the dark ages. Don’t get me wrong; hosting several hundred thousand static HTML pages (complete with pale-yellow backgrounds and animated gif’s) on Apache 1.0 is still a viable way of presenting content, but since friend/client is in the business of presenting high-resolution images and HD quality video to paying members, we both thought we could do better with a web-host that would provide some room for a growing business.
Within days of our initial conversations, I had started playing around with the .Net Framework, mostly because Microsoft had released Visual Web Developer and SQL 2005 Express (along with a bunch of SDK’s) for free, and later suggested using .Net to build the new database-driven website. The primary concern at this point was building a content management system that a non-tech type could use to upload images and video, and add basic descriptions for the products via a rich-text editor (much like the WordPress interface I’m using to type this), and be done with it.
Besides, I wanted to learn Asp.Net, and this was a great opportunity to put it to use.
The work began around November 1st 2006, and we were looking to start testing the site on a new dedicated server this coming weekend – roughly February 1st 2007. Not too shabby considering I knew nothing about Asp.Net when I started.
My only real concern during the development was how much trouble it was going to be to roll the SQL 2005 Express database over to a real Enterprise version.
I should point out that friend/client and I have kept our communications to a bare minimum, as requested by friend/client. I thought, “That’s cool. Who wants to hear a bunch of techno-babble, anyway?”
Yeah, I know. You already see what’s coming, so I may as well get to the meat of the subject.
The new server rocks. I just checked out the cPanel an hour ago.
It’s an Apache server with a MySQL database. The .Net application will never see the light of day – not on this server. I don’t know how much PHP is humanly possible, but it looks like I’m about to find out.
As of this writing, I have yet to break the news to friend/client.
I have so much work to do, it’s unbelievable.
