Posted by BJMurphy on 06/12/07 17:56

On Jun 12, 1:31 pm, peter <p...@juno.com> wrote:
> Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>
> > Peter,
>
> > They're both good languages. Each has its advantages and disadvantages,
> > of course. And both are in more widespread use than Java, IMHO.
>
> > I've learned all three. I use PHP the most; Perl next and Java the least.
>
> care to discuss your thoughts on adv/disadv?
> thanks

I noticed you asked again for pro/con breakdowns and such. I'm not
much of a resource--you'll see that others are much more reliable on
this group--but I thought I'd share my experience just the same.

I've learned all three at one point or another, but I haven't
developed in Java for a few years now. I don't really like Perl in
general; I feel like PHP does everything I would need Perl to do and
does it with cleaner code syntax and structure. As a result, I never
really used Perl in anything large scale or with a significant scope.

At the time when I used all three, I found PHP to be the easiest to
read and write visually, and also one of the easiest to learn--I think
the syntax and structure made sense and I typically described it to
people unfamiliar with it as a programmer's language (this was after
using C++ and Java in school and learning Perl). That being said, I
think that PHP's OOP support at the time (this was a few years ago)
was nonexistant, and only with PHP5 has it really gotten to the point
where I'd use it in production code. Java is much more strictly OOP
and was very useful for compiled console applications, and I enjoyed
using it for that purpose.

Now, of the three, I use only PHP, developing applications online part
time and as a hobbyist. If I wanted to develop a GUI based console
application, I would probably rather figure out the PHP GTK than go
back to Java, but that is more because PHP is so comfortable for me
now.

So, to summarize:
PHP:
-pros: easy to read, easy to learn, intuitive syntax, good for web
development
-cons: new OOP support, relatively dynamic structure (you will see on
here people talking about how functions or behaviors change between
point versions)

Java:
-pros: strong OOP, good documentation (that I recall), good for
console applications & GUIs
-cons: harder to learn, takes longer to become comfortable, I think;
pretty strictly OOP

Perl:
-pros: great cult like following ;-)
-cons: somewhat unintuitive, obsolete compared to PHP (IMHO)

That's my opinion, anyway.

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