Why choose PHP?

There were many types of server side scripting environment out there. For example: there's php, asp, asp.net etc. But I choose php most of the time because its free and it's easy to use.

Let's look at the scripts below:
I am using a flash file to communicate to the server side script.

package com.phppostget
{
 import com.zcs.net.NetConnect;
 
 import flash.display.MovieClip;
 import flash.display.Sprite;
 import flash.events.Event;
 import flash.events.MouseEvent;
 import flash.net.NetConnection;
 import flash.net.URLVariables;
 import flash.text.TextField;
 
 public class Main extends Sprite
 {
  //This is a class that I had written to simplify 
  //the connection to a server side script
  private var tempConnect:NetConnect;
  //Create pointers to the movieclips and textfield on Stage
  public var _send_mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
  public var _btn_mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
  public var _value1_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _value2_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _value3_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _input1_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _input2_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _input3_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _url_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  public var _result_txt:TextField = new TextField();
  
  public function Main(){
   //Setup all the pointers to the respective movieclips and textfields
   //and setup the listeners to all these Movieclips and buttons
   _btn_mc = this.getChildByName("btn_mc");
   _btn_mc.gotoAndStop(1);
   _btn_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, changeMethodEvent);
   _send_mc = this.getChildByName("send_mc");
   _send_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, sendDataEvent);
   _value1_txt = this.getChildByName("value1_txt") as TextField;
   _value2_txt = this.getChildByName("value2_txt") as TextField;
   _value3_txt = this.getChildByName("value3_txt") as TextField;
   _input1_txt = this.getChildByName("input1_txt") as TextField;
   _input2_txt = this.getChildByName("input2_txt") as TextField;
   _input3_txt = this.getChildByName("input3_txt") as TextField;
   _url_txt = this.getChildByName("url_txt") as TextField; 
   _result_txt = this.getChildByName("result_txt") as TextField; 
  }
  
  //Simple listner to toggle the POST and GET state 
  //upon clicking on the Movieclip
  private function changeMethodEvent(event:Event):void{
   if(_btn_mc.currentFrame == 1){
    _btn_mc.gotoAndStop(2);
   }else{
    _btn_mc.gotoAndStop(1);
   }
  }
  
  //Sending the values to the server side script
  //upon clicking on the Send button
  private function sendDataEvent(event:Event):void{
   var tempXMLStr:String = "<"+_input1_txt.text+">" + _value1_txt.text + "";
   tempXMLStr += "<"+_input2_txt.text+">" + _value2_txt.text + "";
   tempXMLStr += "<"+_input3_txt.text+">" + _value3_txt.text + "";
   var tempXML:XML = new XML(tempXMLStr);
   
   tempConnect = new NetConnect(_url_txt.text, tempXML, Number(_btn_mc.currentFrame));
   tempConnect.addEventListener(NetConnect.PARSE_NET_OK, showResultEvent);
  }
  
  //When the server side script returns a result, show it on the result textfield
  private function showResultEvent(event:Event):void{
   if(_btn_mc.currentFrame == 1){
    _result_txt.text = "POST: ";
   }else{
    _result_txt.text = "GET: ";
   }
   var urlVar:URLVariables = new URLVariables(tempConnect.getResult());
   _result_txt.appendText(urlVar.msg);
  }
 }
}

Look at the source code of this php file. I don't need to bother about the calls to this php using a POST or a GET method. $_REQUEST will handle both POST and GET method calls. Isn't that great?

<?php
  //Regardless of POST or GET, grab the values that 
  //were send to this php files
  $name = $_REQUEST["name"];
  $desc = $_REQUEST["desc"];
  $info = $_REQUEST["info"];
  //output a simple message with the values that were 
  //pass into this php file
  echo "msg=Hello ".$name.", the following are your description:".$desc." and here are your info.".$info."&misc=";
?>

Click here for the demo of this post.
Click here for the source files of this post.