Slashdot Mirror

It's is part of my job to stay informed about IT in general.

If you read Slashdot the "right" way, you can get some very interesting insights and ideas.

You can't imagine what I've seen on slashdot for the first time, which has become productive in the company I work for.

- The linux vserver project http://linux-vserver.org/
- subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/
- svg (see previous story)
- Phpcache http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/
- Ajax (I know it's mainly a buzzword at the moment but my current project already bennefits)

And numerous discusions about security.

See, slashdot is not my main source of information, but it leads to information.

You see, there are a number of products that one should use with php to deploy enterprise applications: Zend optimizer, encoder and accelerator.

For a free (at least as in beer) PHP extension to transparently cache the compiled version of you PHP scripts (instead of recompiling every page load), check out
PHP-Accelerator.

Arghh.....

That argument is SO old and so wrong. It would be true -IF- Zend were the only one able/allowed to make an optimizer, but... They aren't! So what then?

Rewrite your first sentence:
"The thing that bothers me about PHP is that it is Free... unless you want it to run fast."
And add a few more links because in addition to what Zend have we have:
ionCube A commercial, closed source but free php accelerator.
APC Free and open-source compiler cache.

There are SEVERAL ways to run php code -fast- and an optimizer is just one of the things you can use. But a compiler would most probably be A LOT better than just an optimizer. Seem to be that you are just fooled by some (Zend's) marketing department.

Why someone have given you +2 Insightful is a question tho?....

commercial as in free?

http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/

yeah, it's not available for php5, yet

No, apache 1.3 sites are vulnerable, but you can protect yourself from the memory limit problem temporarily by disabling it as suggested above.

As people are going to be recompiling PHP it's probably timely to recommend the "--enable-inline-optimization" switch which should be passed to the configure script. More to be found here Oh, and get yourself an accelerator. I use PHP Accelerator although it's not open sourse unfortunately.

Let me also add PHP Accelerator which makes quite a difference.

--Vitaliy

Ok, I'll bite. I'm not a PHP expert, but I think I can respond to a few of these statements.
3. Huh? I don't do this when I add a module. ???
5. There is a debugger. And here.
8. There is a free PHP Accelerator for non-Windows boxes.

Just my two cents.

You need to check out the php caches and accelerators to see what php is capable of.

eg: The ionCube PHP Accelerator

The APC Cache is no longer being developed (check the last build date: August 25, 2001) and is not the best free compilation system.

The best free solution is the ionCube PHP Accelerator.

The Zend Performance Suite is far better, albeit commerical, though since it includes page (partial or whole page) and database query caching (in fact it can cache just about anything) to decrease the load in DB driven sites.

The best PHP Cache I've tried is PHP Accelerator

Let's face it, by the time you've declared you classes, instanced everything a procedural approach would probably have executed and be wating for the next client...
You could preload your code (and some kind of pre-compile) with a php script cache software like PHPA. BTW in PHP4 an object ist like an array with a table of its own functions-scope (its methods). Thus oop in PHP4 is pretty fast. PHP5 has a little bit more overhead (an object is a handle refering to the object table) but with many advantages and if it's too slow use something like phpa again.
b4n

My biggest gripe about PHP in regards to classes is that you CANNOT create a deconstructor function in your classes. Their reasoning is that they cannot make it where you know which order the deconstructors will be called.

Instead, the workaround is to create a function to handle the script ending using register_shutdown_function(). This is incredibly annoying, and for the most part I don't even use it. It just forces me to write a function called ClosePage or something to that effect.

I like classes, and it's worth at least looking into using them on your pages (at least for code you'll be constantly reusing). For those of you who are concerned about speed in using classes, get PHPA.

Hopefully PHP5 will fix some of the issues in using classes in this language. But until then, be hesitant.

PHP Accelerator is really quite good, and is free. It compiles the code once, and then caches that for each load.

VERY easy to install and works VERY well! :)

They run PHP Accelerator, which is as fast but free :)

1. Lack of seperation between content and logic. Embedded logic code inside presentation can lead to a bewildering jungle of death for anyone who tries to maintain the code. Also, repeated logic must be maintained across all pages, instead of changing it in one place. (this goes for all ASP, PHP, perl type scripts)

Try require() and include()

2. Performance problems with interpreted languages

Ask these guys about compiling PHP scripts. Alternatively talk to these guys about caching your interpreted, 'compiled' code.

3. Can't take advantage of OO goodness. php is a flat procedural-like language, you can't do the robust object modeling, or any of the other spiffy OO things you can do with c++, java, (maybe .net) etc.

Ok one point... I give you that...

4. HTML lock in. Your code will forever live in HTML, if you want a different display format (unlikely) you're stuck. ie. what if you want to have a propriatary client instead of html on your plam, you have to rewrite all the logic.

This is total bullshit.
PHP fully supports ncurses for direct input.
Also, I personally have written quite a few small daemons with PHP which had their own UI. Example code to write your own can be found under this section of the PHP manual.

5. Fancy features availible in Java (maybe .net) first. Oracle Objects, native DB connectors, will probably be written for Java before anyone tries to implement them (if ever) in PHP. You might not need these features of a small site, so its not that big of a deal.

PHP supports many, if not most of the standard (and non-standard) databases available.

Not to flame, but I think you needed to be shown a little more of the world, it doesn't end at printf("Hello

Before you flame, the parse error was intentional...

So use a PHP caching product, like PHP Accelerator and your PHP will run even faster.

First, these benchmarks are 'toy' benchmarks. To fully compare Resin to other servlet engines or Perl or PHP, you need to write your full application in both languages and compare the two. These benchmarks are only a starting point and should be taken with a grain of skepticism.

So is Resin or PHP or Perl faster? It really depends on your application. As a first cut, it's probably best to assume they have about the same performance unless you can benchmark your specific application. A difference of only 30% in a toy benchmark should be interpreted as having little or no difference.

Folks if you want a good, FREE replacement for Zend's Accelerator, go check out PHP-Accelerator

Nick has written a brilliant piece of work, and its in use on a number of fairly high traffic PHP-enabled sites, including DealHunting.com and GamingForce.com. Anyway check it out.

The PHP Accelerator.

It's not out of dislike for commercial software - it's because PHP is a scripting engine, and their addon Zend optimiser isn't. It's not that there aren't open source replacements but they'll never become part of the base PHP.net distro. This affects the quality of the software.

Is there anything that can be done about this? Especially for other new projects that don't want to let social issues affect the quality of their software.