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Posted by Chris Shiflett on 01/05/05 19:25
--- Sagar C Nannapaneni <sagar@rythumithra.com> wrote:
> I just had an argument with my collegue (who is ASP
> programmer). He said that in ASP he can use a global
> variable to store the counter and then when the IIS is
> shutting down he can grab that event and dump the
> counter variable to a text file. I just betted him that
> i can also do that with PHP.
This just demonstrates that your colleague may not really know what a
global variable is - what is really happening. Not understanding the
underlying mechanism certainly isn't a unique characteristic of ASP
developers (many PHP developers are guilty of the same), but it seems to
be more prevalent among them. I credit this mostly to the unnecessary
abstraction of details in the language.
Of course, this comes down to a difference in perspective. ASP development
places more responsibility on the language and less on the developer -
much like Java. It is safer. PHP places more responsibility on the
developer and less on the language - much like C. It is more flexible. As
a manager, you like ASP and Java, because they limit the likelihood of
your developers making a mistake. As a developer, you like PHP and C,
because you want the power and flexibility, and you have confidence in
yourself.
This isn't true for everyone. Some managers are technically astute and
choose flexibility over safety, having confidence in their ability to
manage the project as well as hire skilled developers. Some developers
choose safety over flexibility, because they see programming as a job, not
a craft, and they're not looking to impress anyone - they just want a
paycheck.
Ask your colleague if there is a tradeoff concerning the convenience of a
persistent process when it comes to performance and scaling issues. There
are advantages and disadvantages to each, and PHP certainly doesn't win on
all fronts.
Chris
=====
Chris Shiflett - http://shiflett.org/
PHP Security - O'Reilly HTTP Developer's Handbook - Sams
Coming Soon http://httphandbook.org/
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