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Fejezet 55. PHP and other languages
PHP is the best language for web programing,
but what about other languages?
- 1. PHP vs. ASP?
- 2. Is there an ASP to PHP converter?
- 3. PHP vs. Cold Fusion?
- 4. PHP vs. Perl?
ASP is not really a language in itself, it's an acronym for Active
Server Pages, the actual language used to program ASP with is Visual
Basic Script or JScript. The biggest drawback of ASP is that
it's a proprietary system that is natively used only on Microsoft
Internet Information Server (IIS). This limits it's availability to
Win32 based servers. There are a couple of projects in the works
that allows ASP to run in other environments and webservers:
from (commercial),
from
(commercial) and (free). ASP is said to be a slower
and more cumbersome language than PHP, less stable as well. Some of
the pros of ASP is that since it primarily uses VBScript it's
relatively easy to pick up the language if you're already know
how to program in Visual Basic. ASP support is also enabled by
default in the IIS server making it easy to get up and running.
The components built in ASP are really limited, so if you
need to use "advanced" features like interacting with FTP servers,
you need to buy additional components.
2. Is there an ASP to PHP converter?
Yes, is
the one most often referred to.
PHP is commonly said to be faster and more efficient for complex
programming tasks and trying out new ideas. PHP is generally referred
to as more stable and less resource intensive as well. Cold Fusion
has better error handling, database abstraction and date parsing
although database abstraction is addressed in PHP 4. Another
thing that is listed as one of Cold Fusion's strengths is its excellent
search engine, but it has been mentioned that a search engine is not
something that should be included in a web scripting language. PHP
runs on almost every platform there is; Cold Fusion is only available
on Win32, Solaris, Linux and HP/UX. Cold Fusion has a good IDE
and is generally easier to get started with, whereas PHP initially
requires more programming knowledge. Cold Fusion is designed with
non-programmers in mind, while PHP is focused on programmers.
A great summary by Michael J Sheldon on this topic has
been posted to the PHP mailing list. A copy can be found
.
The biggest advantage of PHP over Perl is that PHP was designed for
scripting for the web where Perl was designed to do a lot more and can
because of this get very complicated. The flexibility / complexity
of Perl makes it easier to write code that another author / coder
has a hard time reading. PHP has a less confusing and stricter format
without losing flexibility. PHP is easier to integrate into existing
HTML than Perl. PHP has pretty much all the 'good' functionality of
Perl: constructs, syntax and so on, without making it as complicated
as Perl can be. Perl is a very tried and true language, it's been
around since the late eighties, but PHP is maturing very quickly.
User Contributed Notes
PHP and other languages |
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[email protected]
29-Jul-2001 10:44 |
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ASP rely on a scripting engine which out-of-the-box support VBScript and
JScript (MS version of JavaScript). Support for other languages (ie Perl)
is available throught add-on modules.
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[email protected]
29-Aug-2001 09:45 |
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Actually, ASP isn't as terrible as one might think, if you have a
background in Javascript (or other object-based languages with
dot-notation (object.object.function()). VBScript is a pain, true (cuz it
looks, feels, and smells of VB), but JScript is a lot nicer and
syntactically looks like Javascript with extra functions added for
server-side stuff (ie., file i/o) that Javascript can't do client-side.
And while most of the code samples on the net and documentation
talks about VBScript, JScript docs and manuals can be found on M$'s sites
in a few places.
Where VBScript has that painful
IF
...
ENDIF
crap, JScript has the friendly
if ()
{
// ...
}
and even
for (indexVar in ArrayName)
{
// ...
}
stuff, very much like PHP's foreach()
looping.
Once you get around the bulky object syntax for
opening, closing, writing, appending files/folders, it's not too bad. Good
regExp handling, too. And translating from PHP to ASP and back again is a
good programmatic exercise for those trying to stay grounded in object
(Javascript/Jscript) and function (PHP) notation differences.
eg.,
preg_replace("/pattern/","replacement",$source);
becomes
source.replace(/pattern,"replacement");
etc.
For
examples of code workarounds I've built to translate PHP functionality to
ASP and vice versa (like translating PHP's file() into ASP), check out: and
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[email protected]
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[email protected]
15-Sep-2001 01:33 |
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My last project requires VRML - IRC interaction ( if a user logs into an
irc server a proper VRML object appears in web ... ), and i found that PHP
is quite powerfull in that area as it gives the functionality to use very
customizable templates to create .wrl files. It also gives very good irc
analyzing to properly deliver parameters to VRML environment. And i think
that PHP is a real JAVA competitor in that area. But there is still a lot
of work to be done for PHP-VRML(-IRC) collaboration.
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[email protected]
01-Feb-2002 03:24 |
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What about PHP vs. JSP?
One of the problems I see in PHP is lack to
support some design pattern practices like MVC.
Yes it support the use
of Java classes... but how good is this support?
Can use PHP as an EJB
client (COM sucks because is Win32 only)
There is any equivalent to
taglibraries or the Struts framework ()
in PHP?
In favor of PHP... is really fast!, and easy to learn, ideal
for small/medium websites...but (I think) not so good for enterprise web
based applications.
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[email protected]
01-Feb-2002 03:34 |
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One other thing that should be mentioned about ASP vs. PHP is session
support. I find ASPs session management to be much simpler and more
intuitive. For example, if I want to get and set a variable, I do
this:
Session("myVar") = "bob"
strBlah =
Session("myVar")
In addition, Session variables stay
around through the entire session (until the user closes the browser), so
there is no need for session_start() at the beginning of each
page.
That being said, I rather like PHP more syntactically and
functionally. The C-like syntax is much easier for me to read and write,
and the native functions it supports is... extensive to say the
least.
Still, ASP has better session management.
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nobody
03-Feb-2002 03:31 |
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I disagree with [email protected] who mentioned that ASP's session is
easier to use.
PHP's session management is as easy too!
to set
and get a session var (similar to pyranf's
example):
$_SESSION['myVar'] = "bob";
$strBlah =
$_SESSION['myVar'];
what do u think?
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[email protected]
02-Mar-2002 08:02 |
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PHP is infact very powerful than ASP maybee because PHP doesn't require
add-ons, The only problem i have met converting to PHP
This problem is
PHP's poor support for XML and XMLDOM...if this support is available it's
more diffcult to parse XML files in PHP than ASP...and as i see XML is THE
FUTURE.
if you have any information concerning PHP/XML parsing
please E-maill me,
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[email protected]
04-Mar-2002 02:34 |
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If you ever tried to configure a web server for WAP, serving WML content
you know it's not an easy job. You can easily make dynamic WML pages for
mobile phone users with PHP. All the options and extras from DB+PHP
oriented web-site can easily be transfomed into a WAP version of your
site. With a single line - Header("Content-type:
ext/vnd.wap.wml"); you can be in another "mobile" dimension
:). Take all you need ... and even more.
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[email protected]
12-Mar-2002 11:32 |
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Cold Fusion vs. PHP:
What about the price? I started a few years back
designing web applications in CF with its powerful database interfacing.
Convincing management to spend the money on the CF server & my app can
be VERY difficult. I have since switched ALL my apps to PHP. I haven't
come accross a situation it couldn't handle (granted, with a decent amount
of time spent in some cases). The savings and 'sellability' well make up
for slight difficulties I've had to deal with.
BB, FFASpector
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[email protected]
25-Apr-2002 05:41 |
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note to the previous comment - about the WAP and WML.
i have type'o -
the right header() is :
header("Content-type:
text/vnd.wap.wml");
but i wrote :
header("Content-type:
ext/vnd.wap.wml");
without the "t"
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[email protected]
18-Jun-2002 04:29 |
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Will PHP support Application variables as in ASP? I hope so because ASP's
Application variables with the global.asa is a powerful
feature.
/Peter
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[email protected]
20-Jun-2002 04:35 |
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What about ASP.NET? Programming using C# in .NET, has the same syntax as
C++. It is also much faster then ASP due to the fact that it is compiled.
How does ASP.NET stack up to PHP?
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[email protected]
27-Jun-2002 11:00 |
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Well, about PHP and .NET.... I saw an article about using the COM structure
for wrapping around .NET's architecture.
index.asp?product_id=
%7BD52A041D-4FCB-44C9-BE8C-
E2D446D3A999%7D&null
(sorry
for cutting, otherwise it wouldn't let me submitting the text.... = (
)
Looks very odd and complicated, but as always... People who are
using or even developing for PHP come up with solutions for any kind of
much used technology. So just wait and see (PHP with Zend 2.+) and .NET
will be supported by PHP very soon, just because Open Source is as
flexible as where the main stream wants to go.
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[email protected]
27-Jun-2002 11:11 |
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Oh, BTW the other comment just posted should include mentioning that the
article about PHP and .NET is also about C Sharp (C#) or VB. As long as
the modules/libraries created for .NET are build with the instructions on
that page they should be accessable within COM after the wrapping. That's
what the article is telling me, haven't tried it myself yet, but will
start with C# soon to have a look at it. If it is easy/simple, this would
mean a lot of power behind PHP coming our way. And if I'am not wrong even
on Linux (GTK#) the whole bunch of new tech will give us kick-ass power.
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ahabra at yahoo.com
09-Aug-2002 06:46 |
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This is a comparison between PHP and Java/JSP:
Any
comments?
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PHP and COM