New Project Advice

[Molson31]

Hi there. I work at a small company of 25 people and am looking to create an inventory system from the ground up. My question is which way to go: ASP, or PHP. This is a completely internal system for only our employees. It needs to be linked to a database that can be changed on the fly via a webpage. Basically, an excel sheet styled view access from a website hosted on our web server. The key features are the ability to change data on the fly, to track changes via timestamps (such as a user changing the location of an object), and that's really about it. We are just trying to upgrade from using shared Excel files to track our inventory. I'm pretty fluent in HTML and CSS and have enough time to learn PHP or ASP. I am wondering which is more powerful, easier, and will allow us to create such a system. Thank you.

[birbal]

You can use either. they can both do the things you want. With PHP you probabl;y will get better support.

Edited May 6, 2013 by birbal

[jeffman]

What birbal said. Support is the bigger question here. The online PHP Manual is 1000 times more user friendly than Microsoft documentation. The online community of PHP developers is very friendly (like us). And since PHP syntax is almost the same as JavaScript syntax, that's also an argument for PHP.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Deirdre's Dad

[justsomeguy]

If you're talking about ASP classic, that shouldn't be an option. You can use either ASP.NET or PHP, not ASP classic.

[Molson31]

Of course. Thank you for the replies. One further question: I want to make editing the tables dynamic. No form submission necessary (otherwise, may as well continue to use Excel sheets.) Will I need to implement AJAX? So far I have seen AJAX used for fancy search fields like Google does, but none for on-the-fly editing of database tables. Edit: found this! http://demos.9lessons.info/table_edit/TableEdit.htm

Edited May 6, 2013 by Molson31

[justsomeguy]

Ajax is basically just a way to submit the form without the page reloading. You still need a way to send data to the server, ajax is a way to do that with Javascript without requiring the page to refresh.

[Molson31]

Great! I know Java requires external js files and to be installed on a user's PC. But I am unfamiliar with AJAX. Is it browser based? Does the user need anything? And does the server need something to run AJAX?

[Ingolme]

Java has nothing to do with Javascript. AJAX is just a system for Javascript to make requests to the server without reloading the page, it runs on the client. The server cannot tell if a request was sent by AJAX or by the browser.

[jeffman]

To address your other question more directly: AJAX is built into all modern browsers. You do not need to link to any special libraries or install any special files to use it. You can. (jQuery is a common example.) But you don't have to. Start here. Also, you might be surprised how often AJAX is being used to update pages that you visit frequently. Certainly it can do what you want. I am a college professor, and years ago I wrote a web-app that handles my students' grades. It is essentially an online spreadsheet. If I gave access to another user, I would create the kind of situation you are describing. EDIT. Actually, my students do have read-only access. Not a big deal.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Deirdre's Dad

[Molson31]

Great. Thanks for the replies. If anyone is interested I have used a jquery project called jqGrid and it works phenomenally. http://www.trirand.com/blog/jqgrid/jqgrid.htmlEasy as it gets to set up and start creating your own grids. Thanks for all the helpful info!