Experience of switching tracks: PHP to .NET

It’s always exciting to try out something new,  but when you don’t know if you are going to be good at it, especially when your career is kind of dependent on it, switching tracks become tricky.

What I have experienced after switching from PHP to NET is that they are different. If you were using namespaces, classes, objects, then it would be pretty easy to develop in .Net if not, then you will have to learn a couple of principles like objects, classes, etc.

Knowing more than one language is always a plus point which will help enhance your skills. As the saying goes “more the merrier”. Learning a new language won’t make you forget the languages you already know. When it comes to programming languages one thing is clear you can adapt to any language as long as your logic, concept, and error solving skills are good.

It is more important that you have good problem solving and software development skills to seek solutions to problems even to the most difficult ones. When you know the logic, you only need to communicate through a programming language and the “how to get it done” part becomes much easier.

One question I was often asked after switching to .NET was, what is better, PHP or .NET? Well, one cannot compare these two, because to compare two things they need to be similar (like PHP and python or c#) which is not possible in this case since PHP is a programming language and .NET is not. Generally in .Net, the language used is C#. The main thing to understand if you are switching from PHP to .NET is that PHP is a programming language and .NET is a Web Framework.

Before changing your track make sure you get valid information from a source who/which is familiar with both the technologies. Most importantly switching tracks becomes easier if you know where you want to go.

Sicleta Gomes