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PHP4.0 beta released
Emphyrio writes "Today, the first beta of Zend (php 4.0 scripting engine) was released.
Php 4.0, in combination with the Zend scripting engine, is supposed to be a faster, more efficient, and enhanced version of php 3.0.
Benchmarks between php 4.0/Zend and ASP have been made, giving _very_ good results, and showing php 4.0/Zend to outperform asp greatly.
Php 4.0 is the first public php release using the Zend scripting engine, wich is relased under the QPL source license.
More information about Zend and php 4.0 can be found on the Zend home page and the Php 4.0 homepage. . "
I can't remember the number of times I've done that. Just today I had a "sheeesh, this page is taking ages" moment again...
Here a quite GPL alternative to PHP:
DBI : The DBI is a database interface module for Perl. It defines a set of methods, variables and conventions that provide a consistent database interface independent of the actual database being used.
I like it very much, because you don't need to modify the code when your databases move on a other Server/Os/Software like Perl.
That mean : You code on NT/MySQL is the same for Linux/Oracle
Other good point, You don't have to learn a new language, you keep coding in perl and play with other module like News, irc, ftp or mail routine.
More Info about Perl/DBI : http://www.symbolstone.or g/technology/perl/DBI/index.html
Choice is Freedom.
Trust No One, PURGE
You are under no obligation to write bad code, and while PHP permits that, it does not require it.
I agree with you that embedding executable code in your HTML is a bad idea, unless the executable content is small enough to be trivial. PHP does not REQUIRE you to embed large amounts of code directly in your page, however. If you follow sensible Object Oriented programming techniques, you can use PHP in much the same was as Java Server Pages uses JavaBeans.
Put all of the complex code necessary for a single piece of functionality in a single PHP script which is built as a class. Pass the output of that class to a utility class, like an HtmlTable rendering class, and you only need to include a couple of PHP-specific lines in your HTML. At that point switching out the HTML becomes trivially simple. If you create a "style-free" HTML template which contains all the necessary PHP includes, then you can hand this template off to any HTML production person with simple instructions.
You still have to include SOME PHP code in your HTML - enough to point to the objects that do all of the real work, and which provide HTML output.
From the example you sited above, it sounds as though you hard-wired the PHP code into your HTML. This is a very common, but bad, practice, one which runs counter to component based development.
The website www.phpbuilder.com has some good articles discussing the use of PHP classes.
The practice of embedding executable content directly in an HTML document represents a way to share some of the development burden with people who may not be qualified programmers. You can create an object tailored to your immediate needs (business or otherwise), tell your HTML producing co-workers how to use that object on a web page, and let them do the rest of the work, while you go back to building more objects.
If you follow this practice, the graphic designer doesn't have to give you HTML templates, you can give the designer your objects, and let them build the page. Tools like Macromedia's Dreamweaver allow you to define custom objects so that your HTML people don't need to leave their familiar environment in order to embed your functionality.
I don't quite see your point, since the existing scripting languages do offer similar features and more.
But if you really want to have yet another template format:
You can easily write a template paerser that accomplishes this, with servlets, with PHP or with mod_perl (for mod_perl, check http://perl.apache.org) and quite surely with all the other languages out there, too.
I'd recommend having a look at mod_perl, since perl is usually faster when dealing with parsing text files.
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You may like my a cappella music
disagree. major versions of important open source projects *are* "news for nerds stuff that matters". sure, you can read find them in freshmeat too, but you have to wade through 50 minor updates to random GUI CD players and the like. even if I don't use PHP (at the moment, anyway), I do want to have an idea where it's going, and the same goes for Mozilla and Zope and FreeBSD and other big projects.
I asked this same question when it was announced that GD would no longer be able to support GIFs.
Rasmus, *the* PHP bloke, replied that it will still be supported because people use it, and most importantly, the fact that PHP is not distributing GD therefore there is no legal case against them. Nice !
PHP is faster, you don't need complicate benchmarks, just browse two similar sites one running PHP and one running ASP: The php one sends you the info inmediately, the ASP one takes a while and then responds. I know no beter benchmark than that.
I have moved some sites from ASP to PHP and no client has ever complained about speed (their pages have been faster with PHP); and as a value-added product my clients no more have to reboot their machines twice a day.
Now if PHP4 is (as they say) faster than php3 then Why not using it?
--
Are you on crack, or is it just me? PHP lets you *not* maintain a page as it's dynamic. I have several pages that are totally dynamically generated with php3 and a database. I go to a form, I enter text, it's updated, happy me. Pure HTML is great and all, but if the page is to change, php it.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
The GPL was never meant to allow the original authors of the software to have any special rights over it. It's considered as a 'Copyleft' license, you're giving up all and any of your rights over the code, stating how it should be used afterwards. Moreover, the GPL is very restrictive, and would not allow PHP itself to be reused in commercial applications (since the GPL is 'contagious', if Zend was released under the GPL, so should PHP, and so should anything using it, which isn't what we want). The GPL simply isn't such a great license. It's good for many things, and bad for others. If you look around you, you'd find that great many opensource packages aren't released under the GPL, but under BSD derivatives or other opensource licenses. Ever looked at the Apache httpd license? Or MySQL's license?
The QPL was designed to be an opensource license that retains the authors' copyright over the code, while letting everybody else use it for non commercial purposes. In our case, you can use it indirectly for commercial purposes through PHP or other opensource packages that may use it in the future, but you cannot use it directly in commercial applications. For that, you would have to talk to us (Andi&Zeev) first.
That's exactly what we wanted the license to say, and we were happy to find a ready made, proof read license that is widely accepted by just about any opensource body in the world.
That's simply not true - you seem to be saying things without having any real knowledge about the serious differences between the GPL and the QPL. Even though they're both opensource licenses, they're very different from each other.
5 8251&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread &pid=61#75
Read my earlier reply at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/07/20/12
About GDBM and other GNU software, this is very very minor annoyance. Building binary modules in future PHP 4.0 versions is going to be very easy, so distributing a pre-made GDBM module for PHP, under the GPL isn't going to be a problem at all.
That's no longer true for PHP 4.0.
Your link seems to be deader than the proverbial steel entryway affixation unit...can you check it and try again?
Thanks for the other info, though! :-)
TIA,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Ummm.... Have you tried it before bashing? The differene in this case is the product being compared is not commercial (unless you count the compiler optimized version which is not available yet). After installing php4, all of my scripts sped up by 200-400%. I'm happy. ASP may be easy to use, but it lacks the true programming grit php has. If you want ease of use, use ASP. If, on the other hand, you want to get stuff done, use php.
This means that I won't be able to upgrade to PHP4 until it's also available under GPL. What a shame.
Markus Fleck <!spam-fleck@isoc.de>
Disclaimer: I'm just guessing here.
Generally, open source licenses don't cover scripts/programs written in the OSS script/programming language. For example if you write a C prog and compile it with GCC, the input source does not become GPL'ed, and the output does not become GPL'ed either. As you pointed out PHP4 would be quite useless if the QPL didn't have the same 'idea' in mind. Most of the stuff in the QPL will apply to programs derived from the zend program source I guess.
PHP may have been /.ed earlier, but it looks as though zend.com is now. Can anyone enumerate the language enhancements mentioned, and anyone else give comments on their usefulness?
Thanks,
Gothland
Granted you may need to modify the some HTML that is contained within in the php code but not the php code. When doing a design change (not logic) all you need to do is copy new graphics in and modify the html. However a logic change will require you to chage php code. For example, say you need another piece of information out of a database. Then what you need to do is modify the php (add a variable) to hold the new info and add it to your html.
php is intendend to provide dynamic content for your web pages. Use php only when needed. If done corectly php will greatly reduce mantainence cost of a web site and increase its flexibility. I have been able to reduce code size of a perl web site from 12,000 lines down to 1,500 lines using php. This greatly reduced the maintainence costs for the site.
Here are some situations where I use php
It takes some time to learn how to effectively code sites with php. The most important thing to do first is make the seperation between logic vs. layout of the site and how that relates to the php vs. html.
In the GPL (as I understand it) you can code a commercial non-GPLed app as long as you don't distribute it. If you want to distribute it, you either have to GPL it, or cease using GPLed code.
:) It sounds too complicated. Perl is a lot easier license wise though (given that the artistic license is really lax)
don't ask me to explain the QPL
-- Jeff Paulsen
I really liked PHP3. However, the new Qt-style license makes PHP4 useless too me. Oh well. Guess I'll have to learn some TCL and AOLServer.
(http://pmitros.mit.edu/patchwork.html for why Qt-like licenses are not free).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I hope you're kidding... PHP is a lot more than just a db interface... The big advantage php offers over perl is that it's designed for web development. You don't need a lot of the CPAN modules with PHP becuase the functionality is built in. Not to mention a much cleaner syntax.
My basic philosophy: I wouldn't use PHP to make an adduser program, and I wouldn't use perl to create dynamic web pages.
AFAI understand it, those restrictions do only apply to modifications of the Zend engine, not to scripts in general. As far as you don't link with the Zope code, this shouldn't be a problem, if you apply the analogy to Qt. 'Linking' would probabably mean 'building compiled modules', which you could not distribute without source.
One reason for choosing the QPL could be that the GPL is
a) not compatible with (many) other Open Source licences and
b) unlikely to be defensible in court.
But, if you need a python-based web publishing environment, you could as well take Zope
The very same also applies to ASP, mod_perl/embed_perl, Java Server Pages and similar server side scripting languages. PHP is no better or worse in this particular aspect.
;-)
You can use PHP for _very_ rapid development. This means putting all your scripting logic within the page. The result will be sloppy spaghetti code as described by you. (But if it's just a small job, you can have it finished in a very short time. Sometimes "good is good, but done is better".
If you just discipline yourself, you put all your scripting logic outside the pages into include files. The dynamic page then only consists of some initial "require" calls to include the code and then, you can write your page just like a template, only with a few variable output commands in the page.
So it depends on you _how_ you write code. I wouldn'nt call this "broken by design".
There are *other* things that are bad about PHP3 though (I don't know about version 4, yet, so I hope that they have worked on that). Its standard collection of function libraries is not exactly elegant and the way PHP deals with hash variables also isn't really beautiful.
IMHO, PHP is inferior and a less elegant language compared to Perl. But it is a *very* efficient tool to get the job done, even an idiot is able to install it on a web server (unlike mod_perl that takes a significant amount of time to tackle) and even non-programmers understand how the mixture of HTML and PHP code works.
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You may like my a cappella music
I know of at least one site that went from a response time of 5seconds (ASP) to instantaneous (PHP). They switched web servers at the same time (iiS to Apache).
I fail to see what is so great about php (or mod_perl for that matter). Sure to makes it easy to do simple things but if you want to build a really great dynamic site Zope is the way to go. It includes a real programming language (Python), and you don't have to mix code and HTML. The licensing is better too. Check it out.
http://www.zope.org/
Use Response.Flush() in ASP to send buffered output to browser as often as you want. You can output some static HTML and then do Response.Flush().
But anyway, using Quicksort and empty loops for measuring performance is meaningless. I think more valid benchmark would be like outputting data from same databases to HTML - using best methods available in both platforms.
And you should know that ASP is NOT a language like PHP/Zend - it's scripting host that can accept multiple languages - mixed in one file. You can use VBScript, JScript, PerlScript and any scripting engine you want easily.
5000 milliseconds?. What they were doing in ASP?. My ASP apps would take so long only under a load of maybe 30-40 simultaneous requests!. And I'm talking about 3-4 database connections per page!.
(Note: above approximation is for my laptop - K6 300Mhz, 64M RAM, NT 4.0 Wks)
The benchmarks of Zend on www.zend.com vs ASP appear to suggest that Zend is very good.
.......... So much for freedom.
From what can be ascertained from the zend site:
The benchmarks also appear to be based on "optimizer" code. Zend plan to develop a byte code compiler that will allow the distribution of pre-complied scripts. This means that scripts can be complied and run later. These byte code scripts will be very quick.
The "optimizer" and byte -code compiler will apparently be commercial extensions.
Just as php becomes popular a commercial extension is released - PHP is good for many reasons one of which is its (free) license. This appears as the thin end of the commercial wedge - free php4, but the faster Zend "optimized" code generator will need a fee
- I could be very wrong though
Now, I *like* the QPL, but...I wouldn't go that far.
The GPL is the best license, bar none, because it is the *only* license that grants *equal* rights to all users *and* keeps software from becoming closed. No one has special rights. That is the only problem I have with the QPL: it grants special rights. Otherwise, it's a great license, and discourages closed software like the GPL.
--
I bet if you put a bunch of those Zend engines together, you'd get a bitchin' Beowulf cluster!
Well, looks like we have (more or less) 100% cross-platform scripting engine. Along with Java servlets, this could mean that the OS/hardware would be irrelevant, wich is a good thing(tm). :)
Start your application on a lowly Pentium Linux machine, and upgrade to Sun Enterprises when you "make it"
Jón
Why release the software under the QPL and not the GPL. PHP3 is released under the GPL, so PHP4 has to be too. Which means GPL:d software will be linked with QPL:d... Aren't the licenses incompatible?
The announcement was up last night on PHP's home page, although I don't recall an announcement to the PHP mailing list. (Of course, I haven't been checking it as regularly these days. Both I and the list are swamped.)
/. effect is indicative of interest in the tool: it's really a very intuitive environment. Not something you'd want to write system utilities in (although I'm told it's been done), but for scripting web pages, it's terrific. Check it out.
I'm pretty excited about the new benchmarks. I hope that the
I'm wondering partly because I use PHP a lot, but know just about zilch about mod_perl and don't know if it's worth it to try using it. FWIW I use PHP mainly to make a global, dynamic template for a website, which then reacts to the browser type to generate code. Anybody know how PHP and mod_perl compare for that kind of use?
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Try this mirror.
- Philip
i can tell php4.0 is real fast. why, i've never seen a site get slashdotted so quickly!
There are lots of mirrors for php.net. /version4 dir yet. .php.net
But i have not found one with anything
in the
Try
http://fi.php.net/ for example
I couldn't find any mirrors for zend.com from looking at the zone file either.
Since this morning (GMT), I can't access the PHP site. Is this a routing problem or is it unavailable for everyone ?
If it's a routing problem please help me find a mirror 8)
J-F Mammet
webmaster@softgallery.com
WHY do you feel the need to post software release announcements? This is the domain of freshmeat and linuxapps, not slashdot.
Now the php site is completely unavailable, and I guarantee you most of the people going there because of the slashdot story don't use php and are just going because they say it here.
Meanwhile, the people who USE THIS SOFTWARE FOR A LIVING can't even get to the site.
Gee, thanks slashdot.
> One reason for choosing the QPL could be that the GPL is
...
> a) not compatible with (many) other Open Source licences and
> b) unlikely to be defensible in court.
Could you please elaborate more on that? What makes you think the GPL is legally any more different than the other free licenses? I have not heard any convincing arguments so far
You're wrong :)
The Zend license only concerns C software written
around it. You can write and sell as many PHP
scripts as you'd like without requesting
permission from anyone!
As a matter of fact, the PHP 4.0 license is much
less restrictive than the original PHP 3.0 license
was, and much less restrictive than the GPL.
The QPL only allows us to license the Zend engine
to commercial companies, and has no effect whatsoever on PHP 4.0 nor its users.
Its like a train wreck. Stuck PHP4 on one of my testing servers, virtually none of the existing base of PHP3 code seems to work properly.
Has anyone had much luck with it?
Some code elements are obvious enough why they don't work. I'm not clear exactly why they would no longer allow non-static defaults to parameters in class constructors. Much of my code doesn't work because of that, but that can be (much less elegantly) fixed. They claim there's not very many situations where you'd want to do that, but I can think of dozens of them.
Also, PHP4 doesn't seem to like returning instantiated objects from methods in a class. I'm not clear why it wouldn't allow that, but it craps out with a parse error. Its possible that error messages in PHP4/Zend suck, as well, since that particular one isn't a documented incompatability, and perhaps its saying the error is on that line when the error is in the parsing of constructor for the object being returned.
(if that wasn't clear, code like this doesn't seem to work:)
function my_function($var = "") {
return new OtherObject ($this, $var);
}
Worked fine in PHP3. The error message sucks, so its not clear if the error is in the returning of the object, in the passing of my current object to the new object, or possibly in the constructor for the object.
Has anyone done any serious OO coding in PHP3 and had it work cleanly in PHP4? I recognize that a lot of the OO functionality wasn't documented, and should've known it could be changed, but some of this stuff isn't rocket science, and works in most other OO languages.
Anyway, good in concept, but looks like I'll be sticking to PHP3. I wonder how long development will continue on the PHP3 code base...
Your informatio about the Qt license is obsolete. The patchwork text isn't applicable to the QPL 1.0.
CVS development is possible, and so is forking and changes in the code. The requirement to mark those changes clearly is the same as in the GPL.
Actually the only "problem" with the QPL in Qt's case is not one of free software: It's the fact that shareware authors have a tougher life. That's why they are choosing LGPL'd libraries like fltk or gtk.
In Zope's case it remains to be seen if there is a commercial license for proprietary modules, and how much it will be.
Abd BTW, if you like python, there is Zope as well.
Now, while I know it's not the most efficient way to do things, you can still get a real gif (or jpg!) by way of external programs.
For example, the web-tool for our application used gifs, which were fine, until GD started not compressing them - suddenly 160kb gifs for charts! Uuugh.
The solution? Just use something like giftopnm temp.gif | cjpeg (or a one-step program if you've got one). Our graph.php3 now just puts a
Header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
at the top, and uses
imagegif($im,"temp.gif"); passthru("giftopnm temp.gif | cjpeg");
instead of
imagegif($im);
No problem! :)
The natural progression from code in html.. is, html in code... maybe you think thats even worse, but I think its the way things are going. (of course, store the html in databases and the code runs the website and uses the html bits like lego -- thats the way slashdot does it, with a few caches of pre-built pages for more speed).
CPU is cheap. inflexibility is expensive. Headers and footers, hell, even page templates, are far from enough...
This is actually why I dont much like PHP, because I want a programming language that can talk to everything and is good with strings, not html with codelets inside (be they java, javascript or PHP). I already know a good language.. perl.. and mod perl puts that in the server. So my website doesnt even have any html pages...
On a dual processor 500 box, and mysql, a gig of ram, and some 10k scsi disks, for a measly $3000 total cost with linux, I could flood a T3 with that.. (unfortunately, I dont HAVE a T3... but you get the point).
-Justin
If PHP4 will no longer be available as GPLed software, maybe the Open Source community can pick up PHP3 and develop it as FreePHP? It may turn out to be better than the "official" PHP.
If you are german speaking, try to have a look at http://www.php-center.de/. It's the one and only german speaking portal site for PHP3 where you can find FAQs, Tutorials, job forum, member area, some articles etc.
I don't know. The server crapped out with "too many connections" on perhaps 10% of queries, although there was ample bandwidth.
Big relief when they switched to PHP: zippy and stable. Haven't had an error since.
You want something not unlike XML I suppose (although I don't think XML objects can be defined directly as, say, data retrieval objects) but for the time being, can be inserted at the required location so that the PHP code can be separated from the HTML code reasonably well.
I'm a bit concerned about this passage in the QPL license they're using:
6. You may develop application programs, reusable components and other
software items that link with the original or modified versions of the
Software. These items, when distributed, are subject to the following
requirements:
a. You must ensure that all recipients of machine-executable forms of
these items are also able to receive and use the complete
machine-readable source code to the items without any charge
beyond the costs of data transfer.
b. You must explicitly license all recipients of your items to use
and re-distribute original and modified versions of the items in
both machine-executable and source code forms. The recipients must
be able to do so without any charges whatsoever, and they must be
able to re-distribute to anyone they choose.
c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the
initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items,
then you must supply one.
This seems like total B.S. to me, and such a radical departure from how PHP3 was licensed, to render PHP4/Zend completely useless in a commercial environment. It makes it seem like there may potentially be a liability if an ISP is using Zend on their server, and a customer develops extensions for their website and doesn't make them freely available. There also isn't a clear distinction made between binary extensions, and external libraries of functions written in PHP.
Anyone else see this as a concern? Maybe its time to fork the PHP development, and get a similar engine to Zend distributed where that's not as significant an issue.
Its my understanding with GPL I've got every right to code a commercial non-opensource package that utilizes its functionality, as long as I either do not distribute the GPL'd software, or use it embedded into the binary form of my program? (Like the new CodeWarrior for GNU package...)
We [CodeFab] have recently been approached by a couple of potential clients that were interested in porting away from PHP or were interested in starting new projects in PHP. Certainly, PHP has very recently arrived "on the radar" in the corporate world in a very big way.
So, I decided to have a serious look at it...
...it seems fundamentally broken.
The idea of putting *code* in *HTML* is just plain wrong! It increases maintenance costs tremendously-- there is no division between user interface and application logic!
Example: Say I built a big old hairy PHP site... client wants to change the look/feel, but not the logic. Great-- graphic artist provides me with a bunch of new HTML mockups of the new look and feel.
I now have to not only integrate the new look and feel, but I have to also integrate my old code and-- in some very likely cases-- potentially completely restructure the code!
Maybe I missed something? I'm hoping I did.
Specifically, does PHP support some kind of template that isolates the HTML from the supporting code?
If not, there is no way I could recommend PHP to any of my clients.
b.bum
so now that GD has gone from GIF to PNG...will PHP adopt a new image library? perhaps ILIB? the reason why i ask, is because i actually find the dynamic gif creation very useful. anybody know anything about this?
Gee... u gotta love how nobody questions the validity of PHP4's benchmarks.
You guys almost sh@t yourself when you saw the NT bechmarks done by both Mindcraft (twice) and PC Week (once).
Yet no one questions these? They are done by the company putting out the product... hrm.
So here it is:
Bitch bitch bitch, whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch... this [place product here] sucks, it's obviously bullshit. There is no way that [place product here] could out do [place favorite under-dog OS/App here]. It was obviously swayed by the funding of [place company here] so they can't possibly be valid.
There... somebody had to do it.
If it's faster (considerably) then I will use it. (Athought I love ASP and it's extreme easy of use.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but then wouldn't the above prohibit the selling of php scripts to a general market?
Say for instance, you create The World's Best Shopping Cart software. Wouldn't you then be forced to distribute the source code as well as a binary format?
Also, many contracters do not as a habit "sell" the source code to their work when they do contract work for employers. Won't this QPL force them to hand over their code?
We have the GPL which has worked fine for over a decade. There's zero reason that I can see to use this QPL.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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