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InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-10-2002 22:16

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 01:09

Well, I'm one who is against PHP and Java. I've spent years doing this and doing that. Heres some of the beef. Users only care about 2 things. One is that the program does what its suppose to do, and the other is that it does it in a speedy time. The faster the better. I mean, what would the user want? A binary application that runs in 10 mins to perform a calculation only on a windows machine (which most people have), or a java application that takes 2 hours to run on all platforms?.. I know what I would choose. Does the End User care that your running a windows box, or a linux box as web server?.. I don't think so.. I mean, I don't care. The only thing that pisses me off is the time it takes me to get the web page. And if you can get the page to run fast on both platforms... thats great. But then, what do you want to sacrifice?

Also companies have to support legacy code. And also they need people to maintain the servers. Which is better? A Person who can just point and click and "might" solve the problem or a software engineer that can code around the problem if need too and actually get the problem solved? If you ask me, more and more people are getting too lax on their web servers too. Perl is a scripting language that can take care of the server needs as well as CGI programming. I've written scripts for webmasters that do autobackups of their machines. Clean up mail b4 it fills their drives and so on and so forth.

I'm a perl guy. I've found perl more versitale than php ever was. Perl is modular, PHP isn't, also, lets say i have multiple versions of mysql or pgsql that has different packet types (been there done that). In perl, i can support both, in php, i can't. I can embed perl just like PHP into a page. Perl has modules that have been written to do basically everything under the sun. I have a perl CGI script that communicates to a comport. The only drawback i have to perl, is the fact that it has to be compiled every time its ran (yes i know about mod perl but i was talking in a script sense).

Everyone seems to bash MS. But hey.. .something of MS I don't like. But IE seems to be coming along, but i hate IIS. I'm an apache kind of person. I still don't think windows is game with servers yet.

I really don't like Java. Instead of running awesome on a platform, it runs sucky on all platforms.

Rahly

Rahly

genis
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Dallas, TX
Insane since: Aug 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 07:23

Java does indeed suck. It is slow on everything and in every form it has taken.

PHP doesn't suck, though. Especially when run as an Apache filter.

Perl is great. It has its place.

Quickly serving parsed pages without loading a huge perl script everytime isn't that place.

lallous
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Lebanon
Insane since: May 2001

posted posted 12-11-2002 09:02

Rahly, I guess PHP is modular too...
You can run two different MySql versions if you load the desired library on runtime (dynamically) via dl()



Elias,

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-11-2002 10:17

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rooster
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: the uterus
Insane since: Nov 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 12:10

I personally think that the script languages in general have simply been taken too far. I am one of those programmers who believes that C++ is king, and will be king for a long time with the way things seem to be going. C++ is a mere syntax, it will only go as far as people are willing to take it. It seems like every time someone can?t easily do something with C++ they automatically say, ?Yep, must be time to make a new programming/scripting language.? When in reality, if each of those new languages efforts were used to make C++ stronger, it would gain the desired functionality and become easier to develop with. But, this is not the way people have taken it. So now there are hundreds of specific languages, each with their own quack little syntax making none of them compatible with the other. So now each of us is forced to learn a new language every time we need to get anything done.

2(where?s the damn cent character?).


InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-11-2002 12:33

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 17:51

well if your talking about PHP being modular... it isn't... in any shape of the word.... DL() only works if your platform supports Dynamic Shared Objects (.so's or dll's) and that is because of C .... not becuase of PHP. Now i have to compile multiple C librarys to to get my modularity to work?.. Also then if i wanted to switch versions of the mysql that i'm using. I have to unload one so and load another.. and vice versa. I mean isn't that what everyone is preaching. Having the code be modular so that i can slap it in something else with ease (Plugins/Components). Perl, now, has modules... that i can write IN PERL and can use in other programs without fear of messing something else up. This is becuase perl allows for more than one namespace and have multiple instances of the same namespace. PHP doesn't even come close to that. The most you can do, is include another files, which (if you have functions with the same name) sucks.

Oracle and Java?.. Isn't that going to mess up your costs, right there?. LOL.... I mean.. isn't oracle the most expensive database out there? Coordinating users on a project has nothing to do with the language. I mean.. you have CVS and FVS to do those things for you, without needing to know what the language is. I have never seen an interpreted language keep up with a true binary for the system. This includes JITed Languages as well. I mean MSIL is 1000 times better and faster than Java and it doesn't even come close to competing with a binary. And no.... Java isn't just slow with Files... its slow with IO period... this includes socket communication (which is very limited) and if you don't use OpenGL (which is C/Binary Library) screen painting is horrible.

No Java is more like "write once, debug everywhere" as one of my colleagues puts it.

<quote>
And not all people have PCs, and I don't want to develop for the redmond platform.
I don't want to play my game as if Intel PCs where the only machine
and Microsoft Windows the only OS ever.
</quote>

I'm not saying that either. All I said was that Java was sucky and its tends to suck on all platforms. I would rather have it run fast windows and linux (where 98% of the people are) than run horribly slow and without functionality just to get that extra 2%.

Rahly

bitdamaged
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: 100101010011 <-- right about here
Insane since: Mar 2000

posted posted 12-11-2002 17:57

Personally I don't mind java on the server side but I'm not big on it for client applications, it's still clunky.

Also in terms of java vs. flash , while there are advantages to java, remember your first consideration is cost. Around here I can hire a hotshit flash developer for about half the hourly wage of a java guy of equal caliber.

In terms of using a web interface. You can use this with a proxy server and/or firewall and not allow external www connections, something frequently done for intranet applications.

In terms of the php/perl/C++ debate. I use both PHP and perl regularly the trick is just choosing the right tool for the job. C++ opens up security issues that don't have to be addressed with php and perl, usually I'm willing to sacrifice the speed for not having to deal with these.

While PHP is not modular as perl, nor a library near the level of CPAN there are resources such asPEAR and PHPLIB which do offer a large number of php "modules". Including DB abstraction layers which will allow you to support different db types (I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "support" so I could be wrong). However for applications that do server type maintenance and updates (I too have perl apps talking to com ports ) I still think perl offers the best solution.

Anyway the biggest thing I'm trying to say is, don't knock anyone technology out of hand. Look at what you are trying to achieve and grab the best tool for the job.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

trf
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Dec 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 18:08

There is no advantage to using PHP over Perl. PHP contains only a subset of Perl's functionality, so everything PHP can do, Perl can do, and in most cases, it does it better. PHP's level of adoption today is mainly based on the fact that PHP installations are almost always as a module of Apache which gives them a performance boost, whereas mod_perl is not as common as standard Perl. With modules such as HTML::Mason, you can even embed Perl directly into your HTML (not that it's a good idea to do so) just like you can with PHP. And as far as the cost-benefit situation goes, you can save countless hours of expensive development time with the wealth of code available through CPAN.

And Java... Yet Another Attempt at a PMachine. Come on folks, we've been doing this since UCSD Pascal several decades ago, only this time it's got buzzword support. Java's only strength is that it's *kinda* cross-platform (Write Once, Debug Everywhere -- not even Sun's VM totally conforms to the Java spec); but the tradeoffs in functionality and performance outweigh the benefit of being cross-platform in today's industry, where 98% of your users are going to be on Windows anyway. If you don't care about performance and you *need* cross-platform compatibility (as opposed to wanting to have it so you can wave your wang around), a better bet is to create a web-based application with no application binaries. It's much easier to administer that way to boot since you don't need to worry about rolling out updates. If you need performance, C and C++ can be every bit as cross-platform as Java, given a competent development team.

DocOzone
Maniac (V) Lord Mad Scientist
Sovereign of all the lands Ozone and just beyond that little green line over there...

From: Stockholm, Sweden
Insane since: Mar 1994

posted posted 12-11-2002 19:20

Hmm, I get involved in a bunch of projects like this, and I do all of my prototyping in PHP, and the eventual system ends up running in JSP on the backend. When you discuss Java, most people leap to thinking about "applets", running on the client, but 99% of the jobs I end up on that use java use it as the back-end server language. Might it be slow on other platforms, need it be portable? Who cares as long as it's fast as hell on the unix server they're building the system on!

I totally agree with InI on this one, the only sensible way to handle a business-critical solution is to port it to a web-solution, accessable anywhere. Most of my jobs this last year were doing front-end interfaces (for a web client) that would replace the windows applications they used to use. The back-end code for handling database transactions was, in every instance, written and developed in Java. When it comes to a major installation, PHP is nice for prototyping, but realy, you want to bury most of the logic into beans that can be accessed from different parts of the app, pre-compiled for speed. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but PHP compiles as it's called. And compiles again. And again. No good for speed!)

Personally, I like working in PHP best. I recognize that in the long run it will all be compartmentalized and hidden from the average user (or programmer), but I like to prototype things, so I want my code right here in the page while working.

For the presentation layer, the neatest and quickest way to showcase things is not flash, nor java, but simple DOM/DHTML javascript 'things' that everyone should be able to use, but I might just feel this way because I'm not a java-rogrammer! Also, most of the graphical user-interface people you'll need to work with aren't either, which makes prototyping difficult.

Your pal, -doc-

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-11-2002 20:20

True Doc, but I have to disagree with at least one thing. I still don't think PHP is one of the best. When you start writing huge mulituser environments for the web. PHP is not the way to go. It is nice to have the code within the page... but you can do that with perl too. Not only that perl is good for huge projects where different people are working on different parts, its great in its flexibility and portability. There are already interfaces with a lot of different types of databases. I can write code thats apart of the main CGI/Embed Perl that doesn't affect others. I myself can great general libraries to access hardware and tools that i need that someone else can use without fear of affecting existing code.

Now JSP.... I think JSP is fine and dandy... its a nice tool to use but its definately not the one i would choose. Nor ASP.... I can program in all of those but I do have my own preferences. But I don't think Server side is the way to go for everything.... It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.... i mean thats all fine and dandy on web sites... but what about a raytracer or maybe a scientific program that has tons of datasets to process..... i don't think that would be good for a web page to take 24 hours to come up .... bit right in using the right tool for the job but I happen to think perl provides every need you could possibly want in web based applications... and it does it fast.... for windows applications... i use Delphi... i like the language... its in a compiled state... and it runs a hell of a lot faster than interpreted language like JSP... that goes the same for any C/C++ application i write in unix or windows.... not only that.... what if you wanted to sell a product like that... unless the only place its hosted is your own... you have your source floating around the net... not going to make much money that way.... java can be decompiled back into java.... most of the code i write is in some type of compiled form. See this is y i'm thinking about getting out of the software business... there is not much money going to be made if you can see everyones source.... you'll end up being contracted and with no steady job....

back to cost though.... it would end up costing more for web if you think about it.... if you do it web.. then you have to pay for the bandwidth it uses... which would be a lot more than if it was an executable that only has to be downloaded once.. so then what do you do?... subscription based?... i always hated that idea.... i mean... MS is trying to go that way for its products..... yeah .. lets pay $10 a month to use MS Word and Excel.... if your a business that uses stuff like that heavily then your spending more money to use products like that than you are to use it outright.... so thereby... people use the web based even less....

Not I am in the process of writing a pascal compiler... i'm going to try and make it possible to compiler to multiple OS's and Architectures using only one platform. Pascal has string features built in that work without the bufferover flows that C is always known for. I think Pascal is a better language overall. But in effect it will be able to compile a Unix/Linux ELF binary while you are in windows... Its a work in progress and i'm just getting symantics down right now... anyone who would like to contribute can... i like feedbacks.... Just becuase interpreted language seem to be the goal nowadays.. doesn't mean everyone should go there..... i mean... like MSIL is great for user based applications... but for servers?... it basically sucks...

Doc, I use to work with web (html) based, all the time.. but now i work with the web in other aspects... including XML dumps and tcp servers. I have written quite a few servers in perl and other languages... like i wrote an IM and IRC server in perl. Although perl is mostly known for CGI scripting, i use it for a lot of things. Its one of the fastest and easiest languages i know of to work with strings. even PHP stole those ideas from perl but only halfassed....

Now... i think PHP is great for beginners or even people with small projects.... a colleague of mine said this when i mentioned PHP to him "PHP is Perl for Dummies" lol

Rahly

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-11-2002 20:32

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

bitdamaged
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: 100101010011 <-- right about here
Insane since: Mar 2000

posted posted 12-11-2002 20:43

The bandwidth costs for web based applications are going to be different on a case by case basis, using existing in-house bandwidth for an app is usually negligable for those places that already have an in house network. The costs can also be reduced from the hardware side in fact if you go to a server/thin client type of system, great piece on Slashdot about the city of largo Florida i think that uses an entirely thin-client setup, they're picking up thin-client workstations at $5.00 a pop. My work already uses web based interfaces for much of our web content and associated tasks so for us any additional apps with a web based front end is really zero. Remembering also that these apps only use the internal network. Also for most group-shared types of applications, even with a downloadable client it's going to use some sort of network resources.

For this matter we're still talking about some sort of mystery app, which could be anything. So it kinda makes it hard to argue since I think Doc's arguments and Rahly's are based on two entirely different types of possible applications.




.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

[This message has been edited by bitdamaged (edited 12-11-2002).]

genis
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Dallas, TX
Insane since: Aug 2002

posted posted 12-12-2002 02:14

i don't think it has made this hard to argue.

it seems the arguing is going just fine, actually.

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-12-2002 09:45

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Tyberius Prime
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist with Finglongers

From: Germany
Insane since: Sep 2001

posted posted 12-12-2002 11:56

well, there is more than one factor to look at when one decides what enviroment to use *for a given project*.

One is of course the requirements,
others...
-How fast does it have to be?
-How soon do we need it (development speed)
-How much will it be expandend (code maintainibility is a huge issue, and alas nearly notexistent in some people's perl) (not that you can't create obfuscated code in other languages as well).
-What does the enviroment cost (this involves server & client)?
-How experienced are the available developers with the enviroment?

This is a difficult decision to make, there is not one answer, and a wrong choice could easily havoc a project.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-20-2002 18:43

here are some benchmarks of the different web languages. Notice the number of pages requests and memory consumptions for PHP and Java compared to say.... PERL!
http://chamas.com/bench/

Rahly

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-20-2002 18:52

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-20-2002 20:22

This is using the core engine, if you would have looked at the source. This is using the language itself and its core. As you said, RTFM. And this DOES matter if you run even a decent web site that gets a fair amount of traffic. Its not a useless test, web speed tests are a way of reliablity and responses to web users. It tells you how much traffic you can handle.

As you say "fuck perl", I say "fuck PHP". To me its a useless language thats tries to mimic languages that are far better than it and fails miserablity in the long run. And to me, the only reason Java and PHP get ANYWHERE is cuz they have a great buzz word following.

Rahly

trf
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Dec 2002

posted posted 12-20-2002 20:27
quote:
Do you have a benchmark page for production time as well?



Controlled benchmarks for production time are hard to come by, however some quick Google searches turned up some anecdotal post mortems of development comparing Perl to Java. One cites Perl as 500% - 800% faster in the development cycle than Java.

A systems engineer from EDS has a comparison between PHP, Perl, and Servlets here and he comes to the conclusion that while PHP and Perl make the easy things easy and the difficult things doable, Java Servlets make the difficult things doable, but make the easy things harder than they need to be. Extrapolate the end result of that added complexity on the 'housekeeping tasks' portion of scripting for yourself.

Almost nowhere is Perl referred to as a difficult or time-consuming language to write in. Perhaps difficult to maintain, but that is just as much a function of the coding habits of the developers as it is of the language.

quote:
And honestly, eventhough some php libs are slow, due to lame extra programming,
the core engine itself is a bomb.



Did you even read the benchmarks posted? PHP was anywhere from 50% (on the slow end) to 75% (on the fast end) the speed of mod_perl, even on the tasks where no extra libraries were used. Compound on top of that the apparently "lame" libraries available for PHP and the situation looks even more dim for PHP. Also considering the fact that the biggest selling point for the upcoming PHP5 release is that it has enormous speed improvements over PHP4 shows that the PHP core engine is not "a bomb".... "a dud" is more like it.



[This message has been edited by trf (edited 12-20-2002).]

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-20-2002 21:12

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-20-2002 21:22

Its snowy....

And I don't think perl is superior.... i just think its superior .. to PHP for instances....

now if your running a small server for a few people or maybe internal and your developers know PHP?... then PHP is the way to go... i just think that PHP isn't the way to go for a fully deployed server.... anyway... i'm hungry now... l8rz

Rahly

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-20-2002 21:25

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-20-2002 23:22

i don't like C or C++.... i can read and write code in it..... i can read it better though for porting to other languages... but i hate one thing that most languages take from C/C++... and thats the curly braces "{ }" ..... i even hate that even in perl.... i mean.. when i see that... i'm like... oooo they are trying to copy C.... it must be kinda sucky..... which is weird when i found perl..... i like perl.. but i don't like those dammed curlies... I tend to prefer meaningful things in my languages..... for example... pascal... has begin/end tags in it.... which i find highly more readable then the curlies... hehehe

Yeah... this is one pieve i have about languages.... i think they should... instead of making languages do this... or do that.... and function this way or that.... i think that they should focus on readablity of the code... making it easier to read or forcing programmers to make it easier to read is a bonus on projects that have more than one programmer working on it. You tend to read your "style" of programming better than anyone... but i can hardly read something someone else wrote.... but the thing is... it should do that... and still keep to its "everyone thinks differently" and allow code in different forms.... for example

i like perls ifs....

code:
if( $blah ) {
print "Hola!\n";
};



can be written this way

code:
print "Hola\n" if ($blah);



which is different depending on how people thing.... becuase.. i know people that when they speak.. put the IF first..... and then i know some people put the IF last.... "The programming language should be built around the programmmer, not the programmer built around the language."


Rahly

[This message has been edited by Rahly (edited 12-20-2002).]

Perfect Thunder
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Milwaukee
Insane since: Oct 2001

posted posted 12-21-2002 10:26

Either of you gentlemen have an opinion about Python? I've been hearing a lot about it lately, and I've been wondering if it would be worthwhile to learn it. I'm not concerned about run speed -- cheap CPU cycles abound -- so much as about flexibility and simplicity.

genis
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Dallas, TX
Insane since: Aug 2002

posted posted 12-22-2002 06:09

oh man.. that benchmarking tool is, first of all BENCH.PL.... i mean come on, if that doesn't effect the speed of mod_perl (which hardly anyone uses, and isn't widely available on shared servers) I'll eat my hat.

yeesh.



[This message has been edited by genis (edited 12-22-2002).]

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-22-2002 19:11

Ok back to portability, perl has to be the most portable, its interpreter has been compiled for every OS imaginable... Even PHP has been only compiled for a handful of OSs. And Java? The new standard has just come out not to long ago, so i doubt they have compiled more than a handful.

I mean... hell... portability isn't really an issue that much anymore... hell I could write all my CGI's in BASH script.... you can get bash for almost any OS too, including Windows. Hopefully even some of you know what bash is... or maybe SH.... For the most part "interpreted" language are portable, this include Java, PHP, Perl, Shell Scripts, etc... I include Java in this becuase it doesn't execute machine code but a PCODE that an interpreter runs....

It does boil down to one thing..... what will the application be used for?... if you are targeting business users.. then you need to be more portable than for a home user.

I've installed PHP a number of times on a bunch of different OS's and there have been some that it wouldn't even compile under without drastic changes to the source code. But I've never had a problem with perl. I've installed newer versions and everything.

Rahly

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-22-2002 23:05

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

bitdamaged
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: 100101010011 <-- right about here
Insane since: Mar 2000

posted posted 12-22-2002 23:38

This thread is turning into a religious argument. No One's going to convince anyone else. So I'll just drop a couple of things in here.

First in terms of PHP's portability and compatibility vs perl. Perl definately has an advantage in this area. But it's about what 10-15 years older than PHP? It's going to be more robust. And while PHP is not availible on as many OS's it will run on the majority of OS's that are used for webservers and that's enough. Really that's the thing with PHP it's made to be used as a language for CGI's and web serving where perl was always meant to be a Unix "glue" language. The two are going to be different, they were designed for different purposes.

mod_perl nobody uses? Last I checked that was the basis for Yahoo and my work (techtv.com) uses it for all our cgi stuff I code for mod_perl virtually every day.

Anywa though really mod_perl should only be compared to mod_php and straight perl to straight php comparing the apache modules to the straight executables isn't really fair.

Personally I use both hell I've written in a bunch of langauges and quite frankly I still don't have a favorite (shit I even learned to like TcL for some things). I use PHP for my freelance web work. Why? because it's easy and quick. Perl for dummies? Maybe, but I'm not choosing a language based on pride. I want something easy and quick for me to develop with and PHP is awesome for a lazyass like me and I can bust out a really robust web system in a matter of days (I've got a bunch of premade libs and classes making this really quick) The truth is for 99% of web work PHP has all you need. However for my main job I use mod_perl because that's what we use. And I'm equally comfortable with that. I'll tell you this though if I have to reverse engineer someone else's code I'd much rather work with PHP than perl. There's always 10 million ways to do something in Perl which is kinda cool but it means everyone does things differently. That being said the other day I needed to write something that parses a companies inventory off of an excel spreadsheet and displays it for the web. For that I didn't even consider PHP and went straight to CPAN. This is the kind of integration that Perl is awesome for.

My best advice for this thread is to choose what's best for you and the job you're doing. It's virtually impossible to give a sweeping statement like "This is the best for this" because if that were really true then everyone would be using it.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-23-2002 01:02

Well, I have debugged Java and Perl on multiple platforms at the low assembler level.... I have yet to do PHP becuase normally i don't run it. I'm not bashing on PHP, but I just don't feel that it gives me a run for my money. I hate the fact that it doesn't have namespaces to allow me to actually be modular. But Java?.. Java is terrible... I have seen the machine code it runs and it runs 3- 4x the number of op codes that perl does. But you know what... your right Bit... perl has about 10-15 years on anyone.... even on Java... and i'm not saying i'll never use java... i just think that in its CURRENT form... its pretty worthless for code generation and execution... esp with class interaction rather than just variables. and really?.. do you do any programming other than user apps?.. like maybe device drivers? kernel mode drivers?.. user space drivers?.. or even housekeeping apps?.. maybe client/server programs?... do any serious debugging to see how programs work? or do any serious stress tests of software?

Me, I tend to write more software that other developers use, which is one reason i don't like PHP. Java at least has namespaces you can use modularizing your work.

oh and Bit?... i find perl a lot easier to reverse engineer... for the most part its usually one file i have to look in... almost all PHP programs I've seen involves includes in the PHP and when you use functions.. you have no idea where the function is?.. thats more cryptic to me than a couple of uses and packages names. i can go to the right file in an instant.... with PHP i find i need to have written the code in order to figure it out in a decent amount of time. Most programming languages tend to be like this which i don't. I hate going... crap.. where is this class or function defined?

I find perl to be the best for my job.

If you have a job.. where there is only one person in the team and they do all the web work.. then PHP is great for you. But the moment you start to include more people on the development team.. you tend to have a "clusterfuck"

One of the projects I've had to do was to interface to the web a proprietary database, PHP fell short of that, but in 15 mins.. i had a perl module that the web developers could use to poll from the database. I would have spent about a day writing that code for that for a C module to import in PHP. And I do love the perl module to create flash on the fly...

Rahly

Rahly
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Michigan
Insane since: Jul 2002

posted posted 12-23-2002 02:17

ok i did a small test myself

here is the sources i used

test.php

code:
<?php
echo "Hello World\n";
?>



test.pl

code:
#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\nHello World\n";



and

Test.pm (mod_perl)

code:
package Test;

sub handler {
my $r = shift;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\nHello World\n";
};

1;



I did each test twice..

code:
# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/test.php]http://localhost:5517/test.php[/url] 
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /test.php
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 60.699 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1560000 bytes
HTML transferred: 120000 bytes
Requests per second: 164.75
Transfer rate: 25.70 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 19 67
Processing: 21 39 395
Total: 21 58 462

# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/cgi-bin/test.pl]http://localhost:5517/cgi-bin/test.pl[/url]
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /cgi-bin/test.pl
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 462.536 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1280768 bytes
HTML transferred: 120072 bytes
Requests per second: 21.62
Transfer rate: 2.77 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 0 346
Processing: 43 461 1560
Total: 43 461 1906

# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/Test]http://localhost:5517/Test[/url]
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /Test
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 54.369 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1280128 bytes
HTML transferred: 120012 bytes
Requests per second: 183.93
Transfer rate: 23.55 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 15 59
Processing: 28 37 62
Total: 28 52 121

# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/test.php]http://localhost:5517/test.php[/url]
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /test.php
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 61.412 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1561404 bytes
HTML transferred: 120108 bytes
Requests per second: 162.83
Transfer rate: 25.43 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 19 91
Processing: 19 40 248
Total: 19 59 339

# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/cgi-bin/test.pl]http://localhost:5517/cgi-bin/test.pl[/url]
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /cgi-bin/test.pl
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 460.755 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1280000 bytes
HTML transferred: 120000 bytes
Requests per second: 21.70
Transfer rate: 2.78 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 0 161
Processing: 43 459 1681
Total: 43 459 1842

# ab -n 10000 -c 10 [url=http://localhost:5517/Test]http://localhost:5517/Test[/url]
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3c <$Revision: 1.44 $> apache-1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, [url=http://www.zeustech.net/]http://www.zeustech.net/[/url]
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Group, [url=http://www.apache.org/]http://www.apache.org/[/url]

Server Software: Apache
Server Hostname: localhost
Server Port: 5517

Document Path: /Test
Document Length: 12 bytes

Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 53.868 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 1280512 bytes
HTML transferred: 120048 bytes
Requests per second: 185.64
Transfer rate: 23.77 kb/s received

Connnection Times (ms)
min avg max
Connect: 0 16 67
Processing: 10 36 298
Total: 10 52 365



I didn't have PHP the shell installed to test out... but it would prolly perform just as badly as the perl script. Also mod_perl also allows you to access the api functions just like C unlike PHP which only has a handful of functions. I didn't have JSP installed to test but I might install it just to test this... and this was on a server that was doing nothing and it wasn't going out the networkcard for traffic.. this is just processing time. Now on small programs this is negligable for mod_php and mod_perl. but once you start to do large programs with even light traffic u'll notice a difference. Now, I might choose PHP if they fix some of their stuff, like namespaces and code caching. I couldn't have a group of 300 programmer write a program in PHP, its too confusing and dredging.

Rahly

InI
Paranoid (IV) Mad Scientist

From: Somewhere over the rainbow
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 13:51

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Dracusis
Maniac (V) Inmate

From: Brisbane, Australia
Insane since: Apr 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 17:31

For fucks sake. It's christmas... What are ya'll doing in front of a computer?

Go get drunk and be merry~!

At the end of the day it really dun matter. Hell, at the start of the day it didn't matter to me either so eh... pft, I need another drink.

</internet></computer power>

<pub>
<beer>

Emperor
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist with Finglongers

From: Cell 53, East Wing
Insane since: Jul 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 18:12

<ladies>
<good_times>

<hangover>
<stomach_upsets>
<embarasing_recollections>

Perfect Thunder
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Milwaukee
Insane since: Oct 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 18:45

You've got to use SGML-style closing tags on those, Emps, or XML parsers will cough up a hairball. Do you really want to go through life with an unclosed Ladies tag? Sooner or later you're going to have a stack overflow...

Emperor
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist with Finglongers

From: Cell 53, East Wing
Insane since: Jul 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 19:00

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm stack overflow......................

Isn't this:

</ladies>

the hardest thing to say?

Perfect Thunder
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Milwaukee
Insane since: Oct 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 21:46

Sorry, Emps, I know what you're saying, but THIS is what comes to my mind whenever someone says "slash."

In which case... hey, slash ladies! Awesome!

Emperor
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist with Finglongers

From: Cell 53, East Wing
Insane since: Jul 2001

posted posted 12-23-2002 21:57

PT: :O what a strange world you live in

When I hear slash the slang meaning that comes to mind is to urinate.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Perfect Thunder
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Milwaukee
Insane since: Oct 2001

posted posted 12-24-2002 00:34

? How is that used in context? "Answering the inexorable call of nature, he took a merry slash against the back wall of the police station?"

Around here, we stick to the tried-and-true terms such as "take a (leak

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