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Posted by Colin McKinnon on 01/22/06 17:36
neodem wrote:
> Ok.. but let me ask you this.. What if you were building a real
<snip>
> I can't see how having all the code
> wrapped up in the pages makes any sense at all.
I find it makes life a lot simpler when there is a direct correlation
between the URL and the underlying source code - although it *is* possible
to write front-controller type sites in PHP (just unnecessary). It also
makes things like partitioning a shared system and memory management *much*
simpler.
Bruce Perens recently criticized PHP for being 'too easy' - certainly not an
accusation that could be made of Java web applications. Because it's easy
use, easy to manage and relatively secure are (IMHO) the reason that PHP is
widely available - how often do you see managed J2EE packages. But the flip
side of this is that there _is_ a lot of badly written PHP code out there.
I do believe that PHP is at least as viable a tool as Java for large scale
application development and significantly better than Perl (well, there a
flame war brewing here anyway).
> It's scripting and to me
> scripting is akin to hacking..
I guess you don't have much experience with Unix systems. A surprising
amount of the configuration management is done by (usually Bourne) shell
scripts. Also 'scripting' is a rather archaic and arbitary term these days.
It's certainly true that PHP can act as application glue - I quite like the
fact that I can integrate a Prolog program with a SQL database, produce
output using GraphViz using PHP to bind it all together. Certainly,
historically, the languages that were used for such purposes did not lend
themselves to building large applications (many did not support modules or
provided more than the most basic arithmetic fns) that is no longer the
case. Indeed the mere fact that a language is capable of trivial uses
without significant effort and expertise does not correspond to ineptitude
for large applications.
> It's wonderful if you are building a simple
> web app for your girlfriend to keep track of her recipies but it begins to
> fall apart when you are building scalable, maintainable, professional
> applications no?
>
<snip>
>> You are assuming that code needs to be maintained,
I'll admit that I don't know JSF, but if anything, I think PHP has the
advantage over J2EE for maintainability. I find the error handling much
easier (I mean - checked exceptions.....WTF!). Problem resolution is much
simpler without having a server build. Not to mention inserting
instrumentation into live systems.
(I think I should stop feeding the troll now)
C.
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