4 Responses

1. oracle12

   February 26th, 2010 at 1:23 am

   1

   Go with PHP. It’s a much better choice for a freelance programmer, and you will learn it easier. JSP is great if you want to learn application server programming in J2EE and already know some Java/C++, but since these are usually full-time programming roles, not contracting roles, you would be better off with PHP. This has a large part to do with the fact that J2EE app servers are usually run by the business, whereas a PHP website is a lot more flexible in terms of web hosting.
   Both languages have decent IDEs (Dev-PHP, NetBeans & Eclipse) and support in most programmer’s text editors (EditPlus, PSPad), so that factor is really a moot point, however I will say setting up a J2EE server (eg Tomcat) is a damnsite harder than setting up an Apache server with PHP (which is the major influence on web host support for JSP vs PHP).

2. rhinestones wholesale

   February 26th, 2010 at 3:41 am

   2

   JSP is nice for somethings BUT, the problem really is support, if you want to find a good host or become a host, then JSP offers you all the power of java, but if you don’t know java, I don’t see how that’s helpful. Apache has a tomcat server that supports JSPs out of the “box” http://tomcat.apache.com
   People like PHP, that’s not really a technical argument, but you can easily get hosting for it, it’s probably about the same level of powerful, and when you finish a job or die, there will be someone that can update it. Whether that’s an advantage or not…really is in what you want to do in the end. That is to say there are more PHP programmers than JSP programmers.
   JSP does have a free IDE that I’m aware of called “NetBeans” with color coding and syntax checking and it automatically finds the Java stuff it needs during install.
   PHP I’m sure also has IDEs, but I’m not aware of any off the top of my head.

3. khanalim

   February 26th, 2010 at 5:34 am

   3

   In my opinion if you want to do freelancing you should definately switch to PHP. Its fast, has an enormous amount of application and scripts available on the internet, hosting is cheap and there is more freelance work in PHP than any other language.
   Also Dreamweaver is just fine for PHP development. Infact I have been using Dreamweaver for the past 3 years. Its excellent. But I might also recommend Eclipse, don’t worry its free.

4. mrlinuxg

   February 26th, 2010 at 8:33 am

   4

   I have always like doing PHP more than jsp, not only do I think its a bit less hassle, its also faster.