Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Bora Paksoy wrote: 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. Why on earth would you prefer java servlets? 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. PHP is a much cleaner language than Perl, ie, it doesn't have the same abiguities that plague Perl (print reverse split /\s+/, H P A J;) and is much more akin to C in many ways. Also, PHP was written and intended for the web (it can be used in other veins as well), therefore its imho much easier to do web programming with php. 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? The speed is comparable between the two languages, but then again if you count all the extra Perl libraries you have to call in to achieve the same results, php starts to win. FYI, JSP is the slowest to my knowledge. 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? The PHP way is slightly faster, that's it though (yeah, yeah, I know database independence, but if you want your code to run with any speed you'll tune your sql for the individual database anyway, loosing the necessary portability). 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. No, its not available on Windows, but then again, why on earth would you want to use Windows? ;) If you really need shm on windows, submit a patch, hint, its just a mmap() :) The same applies for perl btw... I have a feeling your not talking about Shared memory by the way, but rather sessions, which you can do via the built-in PHP sessioning support, see below. Shared memory is usually only a good idea (outside of the session scope) when you want to communicate with other programs/processes. Using it on high traffic sites is also not a good idea. 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. You can use Files or SHM management, or write your own custom session backend using for example MySQL. 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? No. Its compile and execute everytime, however if you use one of the Cache's mentioned below its simply an execute each time. JSP btw is slower despite the fact that it compiles the stuff ahead of time. -How does threadding work? How can you cache stuff, etc.? you can cache your scripts using the commercial (but higher quality) Zend Cache (www.zend.com) or the (free) APC Cache (apc.communityconnect.com). -What is the generic lifecycle of a request/response? zend.com should have some information on this. 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. Yes, but do you want your web designer going through your perl code and messing with that section alone? Its much easier to maintain the PHP code in this respect (you could use a templating engine in Perl of course, but that would slow your code down another notch). Also, with Perl HERE blocks
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
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? Threading instead of forking? None of these do either. Apache is a pre-forking multi-process server and both PHP and mod_perl are part of these pre-forked processes. Neither mod_perl nor PHP do any threading nor forking. 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? No difference. 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. Again, the architectural difference makes this a lot easier to do in a single-process JVM scenario. Note that such a single-process JVM architecture which maintains static objects is very hard to scale cleanly. 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. Probably true. 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? PHP is a 2-stage interpreted language. First pass generates opcodes, second pass executes the opcodes. Various add-on caches and optimizers can cache the opcodes and thus skip the interpreter step. Doesn't usually win you a whole lot unless you have quite complex logic in your pages though. The interpreter is pretty fast. There is no threading in PHP. The web server provides the base thread/process architecture. The lifecycle of a request/response matches the lifecycle of an HTTP 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. Probably not. 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. Basically any language can be used to write web apps. There is nothing in PHP you can't do in Perl, ASP, Cold Fusion, Python or JSP. PHP just happens to package things together in a easy to comprehend way and everything you read about PHP is geared towards the Web problem whereas in the case of more general-purpose scripting languages it can be confusing trying to figure out how to approach the web problem. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
Why on earth would you prefer java servlets? Hmm... Let's see;Java is a full-fledge, totally OOP and awesome programming language but not a scripting language. Speed (will be mentioning this later), having total control over whatever you want (exception handling, db pooling, caching, syncrhonization, threadding, etc. etc.), ease of use, etc. etc. I mean, come on;) veins as well), therefore its imho much easier to do web programming with php. That is what I saw, but as I said, I didn't see a lot of difference between perl and php, I mean, C++ and perl are very different, likewise java and perl or other languages, but PHP has a very similar syntax. FYI, JSP is the slowest to my knowledge. The first request is slow since JSPs are compiled into servlets (java classes)... But, then it is not bad... In fact, I saw some comparisons showing that servlets are kicking ass! But, again, I mean, this all depends on how you design/configure the system, one simple example:java used to crap out (before 1.2, don't know the latest situation, but heard that it is better) after 40-50 threads per jvm, so if you have more than 40-50 concurrent requests, starting couple of servlet engines on different jvms and using apache dispatching improves the speed a lot! Likewise, tricks like using caching, staying away from classic traps (i.e. using StringBuffers instead of Strings when needed), minimizing garbage collection, etc. etc. Also, with the introduction of JIT and hotspot capable JREs, java is doing pretty well these days...You can check comparisons at rasin servlet engine page. No, its not available on Windows, but then again, why on earth would you want to use Windows? ;) Same here;) I am supposed to implement this sytem on windows 2000...But I totally agree! I would definitely prefer linux or other unix systems over windows... If you really need shm on windows, submit a patch, hint, its just a mmap() :) Well, what I meant was something like ease of sharing data in java (using static variables) and dealing with synchronization is extremely easy in java... Also, FastCGI is not that hard as far as I could see, but I am not an expert in that area;) You can use Files or SHM management, or write your own custom session backend using for example MySQL. Using a database in the backhand is what huge sites are doing, but they have huge boxes to run these databases and very fast network infrastructure. Do you think overhead of serializing/de-serializing session for every request via the database is a lot? Files again is??? I don't know... As you specified SHM is not very nice either (dealing with synchronization might be messy). No. Its compile and execute everytime ??? Don't you think using perl and printing out html from the code is faster than this? I mean, parsing the whole html doesn't seem very good???Actually, this is what I was scared of. I mean, for example say you have an html that consists of blocks... Making every block an include is clean, but this time, php engine has to read all of these includes, and parse the html+php and compile/run php everytime a request is made??? I am not sure about this? Yes, but do you want your web designer going through your perl code Hmmm, good point, hehehehe... Thanks a lot for your time and I appreciate your comments. Baho... __ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
Threading instead of forking? None of these do either. Apache is a pre-forking multi-process server and both PHP and mod_perl are part of these pre-forked processes. Neither mod_perl nor PHP do any threading nor forking. ??? I didn't get this? Aren't these pre-forked processes handle requests using threads internally? Say you configure apache to pre-fork 5 server processes, what you are saying implies that you can only handle 5 concurrent requests?? can you please explain this more? Again, the architectural difference makes this a lot easier to do in a single-process JVM scenario. Note that such a single-process JVM architecture which maintains static objects is very hard to scale cleanly. Actually, as far as I know, you can configure tomcat or other servlet engines to start multiple servlet engines (JVMs) and the dispatcher code makes sure that every user goes to the same JVM for subsequent requests. So, you can scale with this architecture... The lifecycle of a request/response matches the lifecycle of an HTTP request/response. Actually, I was asking the low-level information, I mean something like web server receives the request, hands this over to mod_php, that requests a thread from the worker threads, so on so forth... Anyways, once again, thanks for your time... Baho. __ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
??? I didn't get this? Aren't these pre-forked processes handle requests using threads internally? Say you configure apache to pre-fork 5 server processes, what you are saying implies that you can only handle 5 concurrent requests?? can you please explain this more? That's exactly what it means. Apache on Unix is non-threaded. Actually, I was asking the low-level information, I mean something like web server receives the request, hands this over to mod_php, that requests a thread from the worker threads, so on so forth... Well, since there are no threads involved here there is no pool of worker threads or anything like that. You simply have a process that grabs a requests, branches off to mod_php/mod_perl and sends the result back. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
I mean, for example say you have an html that consists of blocks... Making every block an include is clean, but this time, php engine has to read all of these includes, and parse the html+php and compile/run php everytime a request is made??? I am not sure about this? I wouldn't say it was clean to split everything out into separate files. I tend to do something more like: ? include 'logic.php' ? HTML tags tags tags ? my_func() ? More tags ? another_func() ? More tags ? footer() ? ie. don't necessarily use 1 file per block, create functions that are defined in a single file and call those instead of including a new file. If you really do want to separate it, have a look at a cacheing templating system like Smarty which lets you keep this per-file separation but it caches the combined logic. http://www.phpinsider.com/php/code/Smarty/ -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
ie. don't necessarily use 1 file per block, create functions that are defined in a single file and call those instead of including a new file. How do you echo your html, do you put the html in your functions and escape the double quotes? There is some extra load there echoing all the html? Thanks. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
ie. don't necessarily use 1 file per block, create functions that are defined in a single file and call those instead of including a new file. How do you echo your html, do you put the html in your functions and escape the double quotes? There is some extra load there echoing all the html? echo HTML? I do this: ? php stuff..? HTML stuff ? more php stuff ? I drop out of PHP mode to display raw HTML. If I have a lot of HTML with a lot of PHP variables tossed in, I do: ? $test = 'test'; $one = 'one'; echo EOF This is a $test. And here is another $one. EOF; ..more php code... ? Or sometimes simply: HTML stuff ?=$variable? and some more HTML stuff. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)??
hallelujah...first time i've seen someone else mention here docs, and being rasmus, not a bad person to make the mention ;-) -Original Message- From: Rasmus Lerdorf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 12:17 AM To: speedboy Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PHP] PHP vs. PERL (Functional Comparison)?? ie. don't necessarily use 1 file per block, create functions that are defined in a single file and call those instead of including a new file. How do you echo your html, do you put the html in your functions and escape the double quotes? There is some extra load there echoing all the html? echo HTML? I do this: ? php stuff..? HTML stuff ? more php stuff ? I drop out of PHP mode to display raw HTML. If I have a lot of HTML with a lot of PHP variables tossed in, I do: ? $test = 'test'; $one = 'one'; echo EOF This is a $test. And here is another $one. EOF; ..more php code... ? Or sometimes simply: HTML stuff ?=$variable? and some more HTML stuff. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
