Posted by larry on 10/21/06 20:31

namcy@byuk.co.uk wrote:
> I'm a newbie at the CGI thing so I thought I'd ask you PHP boys
> what you think about Perl v PHP
> What are their relative strenght and weaknesses?
>
> -nancy-

When shopping for a development langauge to learn I looked at PHP,
Perl, Python, etc. I picked PHP primarily on the readability of the
code syntax, as I wanted something that could be easily deciphered by
others even if they didn't know PHP.

Perl has a lot more symbology which making readability much harder if
you are not familiar with the syntax.

Though on the Perl side many of the enthusiasts quote the technical
merits of Perl and the possible pitfals of PHP (which there are), but
fortunately the PHP shortcomings are very well documented and easily
overcome (either through reeadily available code libraries like Pear,
or reading and using common programming techniques for PHP readability
and security).

I have been using PHP for over a year now and find many of my problems
are not as complex as they were back in my xBase days as the language
is vary dynamic and does pack a big punch with just a few commands.
The variable system, string and array handling are great (get used to
them, they can thow you off too).

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