On Thu, Aug 03, 2000 at 12:28:52PM -0500, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> I don't know if it is the phase of the moon or what, but a lot of
> the lists I lurk on lately have been talking about Perl and not in a
> good way at all. The following is from the mySQL list where a user
> asked if PHP or Perl would be better for his website....this one was
> the most interesting but ALL but one said "PHP".
I read about 90% of the traffic on the MySQL list and post a fair
amount, but may have missed this thread (especially if it was near in
time to TPC4).
Given the context of the response, I see little wrong with this. I use
Perl and MySQL in my day job and in my free time. I also use PHP and
MySQL in my free time.
> *>Harald,
> *>> PHP is hardly ever used outside of web programming, whereas Perl is a
> *>general-purpose high-level programming
> *>> language which can be used for almost everything.
> *>
> *>Presumably you are pushing Perl, but if you *want* to do web
> *>programming, then there's no compelling reason why you would want
> *>to use Perl over PHP4.
It's unclear what "web programming" means here. But if they were
talking about PHP in its usual form (database-driven dynamic web
sites), it's probably true for someone who doesn't already know Perl.
> *>PHP4 has some features that lend itself particularly to the job
> *>that it's solving, is reportedly less resource hungry and more
> *>efficient than perl, and has several components, some provided for
> *>free, that will speed it up considerably over perl and previous
> *>versions of PHP.
This is true. PHP isn't as heavy as something like mod_perl, nor is it
as complex to setup. And the language is heavily slanted toward "web
programming". That, after all, it what it was designed for.
> *>Also, PHP is perfectly up to the task of solving many problems
> *>that one might write in perl or some other language.
True again.
Now, I'm one to defend Perl when it's being unfairly spoken of, but in
this case I don't see it. In that context, it seems just fine.
FWIW, there is a lot of Perl related traffic on the MySQL list,
too. Many folks are using Perl/DBI with MySQL. They ask questions of
the list and generally get good answers. In fact, I've found that the
bulk of the regulars on the list have a good feel for when PHP or Perl
is the better tool for the job, and they do a decent job of taking
that into account with their answers.
Jeremy
--
Jeremy D. Zawodny Web Geek, Perl Hacker, Yahoo!
http://www.wcnet.org/~jzawodn/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
