PHP + SQL Server or VB.NET + MySQL

Question

Can someone suggest that out of the two mentioned (odd?) combinations, which is less odd, or in other words, is less trouble to work with + maintain.

If it helps, the system is going to have two front-ends - one web application and one desktop application. The desktop application is going to be coded using VB.NET, and the web application in PHP. There's really no reason why the desktop application can't be replaced by a web application as well - except that one of the programmers seem to really want to code it in VB.... However, none of us have experience working with either of these pairs (you could easily call us n00bs), so we are a bit apprehensive to start.

P.S. hosting service will be gotten from some provider and not be on the client's own server.

Answer 1

... I don't understand the circumstances which would force a choice like this. If you're coding in VB.Net and MSSQL is available why would you use MySQL? Or visa versa...

Answer 2

Neither is really "more awkward."

I'm going with VB.net though because VB.NET natively uses DB abstraction, whereas PHP has opt in DB abstraction -- you can either use the PHP core's ODBC_ stuff, documented here us2.php.net/manual/en/book.uodbc.php. Or, the external db-agnostic PHP PDO stuff documented here us3.php.net/pdo .

VB.NET afaik has Data Providers which are the only supported method of connecting to a DB, and they abstract the DB by default. So moving from a MySQL db, to a Pg, or MSSQL db, is a simple as changing the Data Provider connection string. This is the similar to PHP's opt-in PDO.

Answer 3

TBH I'd go with MySQL, although SQL Server is by far the superior platform, all things considered. If you're comparing them as similar alternatives, you're probably not going to use any of the features of MS SQL that make it the better platform, and so it's not worth the extra hassle.

In summary, here's why:

• PHP's support for MySQL is second to none (given the following caveat)
• PHP's support for SQL Server is suboptimal; Microsoft provide a PHP driver, and there are other techniques, but PHP's simply not quite as database-agnostic as VB.NET
• VB.NET, although it loves SQL Server, will happily talk to any OLEDB provider (e.g. an ODBC connection) with no problems whatsoever, and MySQL's ODBC support is pretty mature.