Hi;
I am planning to implement a new site which will be
using mysql db heavily, and I am in the middle of (and
stuck:) deciding what I should use for implementation.
I would definitely prefer Java Servlets, but it is
very expensive to host servlets, so I am only
comparing PHP vs. Perl.
I have been hearing very good things about PHP for a
long time, and I started reading the manual/tutorial
posted on php.net. To be honest, I didn't see much
difference from perl. It is almost identical (I have
to admit, there are some practical advantages, but not
a huge difference), even the syntax is almost same to
perl.
Comparing basic functional stuff:
1.Speed: If you use mod_perl or fastcgi kind of deals
(which are based on threadding instead of forking), I
don't think PHP is considerably faster than perl? Is
that the case?
2.Database Connection: What is the BIG advantage of
PHP here? Using DBI packages for perl, and fastcgi for
db connection pooling, you can achieve the same thing,
I guess. It just looks like PHP has some of these
libraries embedded in the core language, but the idea
is same--implementing the native db protocol over
sockets?
3.Shared Memory, global variables, etc: I was
expecting a better interface for this in PHP, and I
was really disappointed to see that developers have to
use O/S level shared memory. First of all, this is not
available on Windows???? And, it is kind of messy and
hard to use, especially when you compare this to
Java's static variables.
4.Session Management: If you use files to manage
sessions, same thing can be achieved in perl.
Regarding in memory session management, as far as I
know, FastCGI can share variables among sessions, so
it shouldn't be hard to write a session manager in
perl as well.
5.Architecture: I couldn't find any doc about how PHP
works. And any answer to important questions, like
-How does compilation process work? Does the PHP
engine compile htmls first time a request is made to
that html and use that compiled code later on(just
like JSPs), or does it compile everytime? Is PHP
engine an interpreter, jvm-like byte-code
generator/executer or a compiler?
-How does threadding work? How can you cache stuff,
etc.?
-What is the generic lifecycle of a request/response?
6. Embedding scripts in HTML: Well, I mean, this is
similar to JSP, but what the hell, you can use <<AA
..... AA; syntax and embed any string you want at any
point by mixing and matching HTML and perl code. I
mean, yeah PHP is easier, but it is not considerably
easier, I believe.
I have been searching the internet to find some
serious comparisons, but all I found was a stupid page
which compares the syntax rather than functionality.
As I said, I really need to start developing soon, and
I would appreciate comments regarding this issue.
Thanks in advance,
Baho.
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