Discussion forum code for Microsoft SQL and IIS/ASP?

May 6, 2004 2:05 PM

Looking to do some discussion forums on a commercial web site. I know there's a bunch of code in a can for this kind of stuff. Most of the one's I've seen are looking to be run on MySQL and PHP. Most of our site is on Microsoft SQL Server and IIS/ASP. Does anybody have thoughts or suggestions with respect to the best package for that environment?

It seems like I've seen this question asked here before. Searches turned up a few community blog threads, but I'm not sure they're exactly the same kind of thing (though they probably aren't exactly too different either).

posted by willnot to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I'm afraid I don't know of any ready to go solutions but it seems to me that among the most likely platforms would be ColdFusion and ASP.NET. Metafilter runs on SQL Server and IIS, and it's written in ColdFusion. You could code the whole thing in old style ASP, but I get the idea that it is basically deprecated as far is MS is concerned.

A major advantage of ColdFusion is that its markup based structure makes it easier for HTML based designers to learn. Every option will have advantages and drawbacks. You're going to need development support and customization even if you can find an open source package, so assesing your organization's budget and resources for that is essential. MS based development is historically and culturally profit based, so you'll find that most of the OSS stuff is indeed written for PHP/Apache/MySQL, etc.
posted by crunchburger at 3:40 PM on May 6, 2004

In my opinion, (since you said this is commercial, I'm assuming there is a company involved) you should creating a new position for a MS-oriented web developer. A talented person could tear through this, and there are many,many unemployed, talented people out ther right now. Tell the boss that $80k talent is taking $45k.
posted by crunchburger at 4:28 PM on May 6, 2004

WebWiz has a decent ASP/SQL based discussion forum which is free. checkit: LINK
posted by chaz at 4:28 PM on May 6, 2004

Check out ASP.NET. They have a bunch of starter kits, one of which includes a discussion forum. It's ASP.NET and SQL Server based as well.

My shop recently took the ASP.NET Time Tracking app and modified it to meet our specs. So far no complaints, with about 100 users.
posted by smcniven at 5:36 PM on May 6, 2004

For whatever it's worth, php works just fine on a Windows server and has all kinds of microsoft sql/odbc hooks for db access. I haven't tried to make it work with IIS in awhile, but there's an isapi filter that just plugs right in. Along those same lines, phpbb includes its own database abstraction layer, so porting between different db's isn't such a big deal.

I've run online communities for large organizations in the past, and I'll be darned if I didn't wish I'd been able to use phpbb the whole time. It provides for a huge degree of flexibility while still remaining completely open and customizable... and free! Crunch is right, though, of course -- there is something to be said for just building something in house, particularly if it has to connect to other databases.
posted by ph00dz at 9:31 PM on May 6, 2004