I am planning to build a web application and am going to host it. Since hosting cost less for php and it being similar to .net i am planning to go for php.
I am basically a .net guy. But have no issues in learning php if it is similar to .net. Please give in your opinoins in doing so. Also please tell me if php supports asynchronous calls like the AJAX in asp.net. Give me your comments.
PHP has no built in support for asynchronous calls. You can make pseudo-asynchronous calls using curl.
Here's a little more information about making asynchronous PHP calls.
AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XML. PHP isn't mentioned anywhere, and doesn't need to be asynchronous to facilitate this.
The process is that a Javascript function calls a synchronous PHP page that returns results and the users browser is updated. The asycnhronous bit is that the javascript function doesn't block when it makes the call, and a callback function is fired when the PHP page returns.
I've implemented AJAX in PHP with no special programming above normal PHP HTML rendering and Javascript calls.