Why PHP?

[mrhappyface]

Something else I was just posting got me thinking about something I've been noticing a lot of. It seems like a vast majority of sites are running LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP) setups, and I'm wondering: with all the other possibilities out there, why use PHP? Why not Java, .NET, Perl, etc? Why Linux? Why not Windows? Is it just 'cause that's what everyone else is running?

[ArtWilliams]

Because it is free as in free speech and free beer! You don't have to make Bill Gates richer. The license lets you control your source code and change it if you want. From my experience open source software just plan works better too. I've never had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall the operation system. I know Windows users who do that every 6 moths on purpose. Want more info? Read the Wiki entry.

Originally Posted by mrhappyface

Something else I was just posting got me thinking about something I've been noticing a lot of. It seems like a vast majority of sites are running LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP) setups, and I'm wondering: with all the other possibilities out there, why use PHP? Why not Java, .NET, Perl, etc? Why Linux? Why not Windows? Is it just 'cause that's what everyone else is running?

[Cleo]

Because it just works

[cd34]

A windows hosting company pays $x/year for a professional license for windows. That cost is usually passed on to the client, so, unless there is some massive subsidy coming from somewhere (and there is for a few hosting companies), windows hosting is just going to be more expensive to the client or less profitable to the hosting company.

Since linux is free, (not that you cannot buy support packages), it is very easy for a hosting company to buy a machine, put Linux on it and you've got a system.

Mysql was a free database -- compared to Oracle at $15k and a certified OS (at one point, Sun Unix, SCO or the others were required for their minimal entry point), and you had an opportunity for people to use mysql. Postgresql never took off as well though, it was ACID compliant and Mysql wasn't. That compliance came at the price of performance. Postgresql isn't the laggard that it used to be, but, Mysql grabbed that critical mass early and hasn't really let go.

Apache came along when NCSA was the only real web server software. NCSA was a pain to set up, though, it was menu driven. Apache had these confusing config files, but, was a little more flexible, easier to administrate with automated scripts and quickly became the tool to use. NCSA used to charge money if you hosted more than a few sites on it. IIS comes with Windows, but, you still have to buy that OS, so, there is some inherent cost.

It used to be that if you wanted a dynamic page you had to use Server Side Includes or CGI scripting. Perl was the choice for CGI, and CGI's performance was lackluster. PHP came around because someone wanted a little more power to do things inline on pages. It grew into a more full fledged language and as a result of its simplicity, gained quite a bit of acceptance.

From a software developers standpoint, much of the above forces your hand. You almost have to use apache because it is installed everywhere. If you want to do something sophisticated, and are looking for an external programmer, your pool of talent is much larger for apache than most of the other webservers. That doesn't mean that Apache is the best -- apache has some serious shortcomings for high traffic sites.

There are programmers that love php. php has so many issues internally and zend for the love of god doesn't understand multithreaded programming, but, its a language that allows people to churn out code without much effort or knowledge. It gives results that are adequate most of the time and, in today's society, rather than writing good code, we throw more cpu horsepower at it. Unlike mod_perl or mod_python which embed perl or python interpreters in apache so that your code becomes a part of the webserver, php is interpreted (or, with Zend the compiled bytecode is decoded) each time it is run. For performance, php isn't the answer, but, for someone developing code, being able to restart apache to reload a changed mod_perl/mod_python script isn't always easily available.

As for mysql, when you spoke database, you had flat file, hashed file structures, indexed files or a database. At the time early on, mysql was the popular choice, postgresql was too slow.

These applications all built momentum, and, like it or not, became the standard because of critical mass.

Apache is by far not the fastest webserver out there -- their early charter was 'serve it correctly first, serve it fast later'. While Apache 2.2 and some of their models are much higher performance, their dependency on a straightforward php installation prevents using the higher performance apache models easily. The thought of using php through a fastcgi pipe to gain performance scares a lot of people, and, since Zend doesn't know how to write multithreaded code, if you use apache and don't want to use fastcgi, you're stuck with the slowest of apache's models.

PHP in its own right is poorly written from the ground up. PHP5 has made enormous strides since PHP4, but, its still interpreted. To get a little extra speed out of it, you need to use products you buy from them, or, two modules that Zend tries their darndest to break every release because they cache php bytecode.

There is no best architecture for any solution. The problem is, LAMP is fairly good for 90% of the situations and unless you're doing something extremely out of the ordinary, enough effort can be put into making LAMP work.

Personally, I dislike PHP with a passion. It has its place, but, is by no means a performer. I am not a fan or apache or the tricks required to make it work well. Apache turned down a set of 10 patches from SGI that offered serious performance benefits because it didn't work globally across all of the platforms they supported. Even though apache has their own code that doesn't work across all platforms (Windows Apache loses quite a few capabilities), their developers turned down some significant performance enhancing patches. Some of those patch ideas did make it into some of the apache 2.2 models.

PHP/Zend is in its own little world. Writing code like its 1996 -- and if you want to make your php run faster, buy this software from us which still doesn't come close to the performance you would get out of mod_perl or mod_python.

But, we have to live with what the majority is able to support. As a software developer, if you write code for clients that is expected to run on a virtual server, you can't expect to write an apache module or a mod_perl script that requires a restart when there are changes. You would seriously limit your potential client base at that point, so, you're somewhat stuck with LAMP.

Not all hosting companies will allow you to run different webservers. And there are dozens to choose from. Chromium X-15 used to be the fastest userland webserver out there. nginex is probably the current equivalent. But, probably 2% of the existing market has a real demand for performance like that, though, 100% of the market could benefit from it. The problem is, easily deploying either of those while maintaining compatibility with the applications already written. Zeus is still one of the fastest 'measured' userland webservers out there. Zeus pays for the testing so that they can boast that and they have some very bright programmers working all the time to tweak out every little bit of speed. If it wasn't so expensive, you would see a lot more hosting companies using it for more than just the top-end hosting requirements.

I would replace php with mod_perl or mod_python. And with google releasing their filesystem under the hadoop project, and their compute cluster access being very python centric, python is looking to be good direction, but, you won't find many hosts that allow you to restart apache whenever you make a code change.

I didnt really touch on Java because I am not a fan of Java. Yes, you can write cross-platform applications that run using Java, but, the language structure is cumbersome, and, its performance is average.

In short, there's no real reason you cannot use something other than LAMP, but, you're going against what has built a lot of critical mass and become the de facto standard.

Not that you couldn't write the next killer app and have clients request special setups, but, you might find that clients are hosted where some of those changes might force a hosting plan change.

[RicRock67]

Yeah... what CD34 said.

That pretty much covers it perfectly

[mrhappyface]

Originally Posted by RicRock67

Yeah... what CD34 said.

That pretty much covers it perfectly

Yeah, that covers it pretttty thoroughly.

I think you answered the question CD34. What brought up the question is that although PHP seems to disproportionately dominate the porn site world, in say the world of eCommerce or high traffic sites, writing an enterprise class website in PHP is pretty much unheard of. Your answer though makes it pretty clear though why PHP would dominate in an environment where the fundamental hosting costs make a big difference for webmasters - thanks.

[cd34]

In the brick and mortar world, having multiple letters after your name signifies 'expertise'. Those companies put more weight on how many letters you have, and, Microsoft has many programs that add letters after your name while php (and the other available solutions don't).

When a recruiter or non-adult business looks at employees, they look for those extra letters. The people with those letters were trained in Microsoft, so, what solutions do you think they would offer?

One of my first jobs working for a government contractor had multiple levels of management and technicians that all had those certifications. When I was given business cards, I asked them to put S.E. after my name -- for Self Educated. Those two letters granted much quicker acceptance into the herd.

However, the largest ecommerce site and the largest search engine both are heavy users of open source. Amazon uses mod_perl (and used to use masonhq) and google uses mod_python (and ironically still uses apache 1.3 as a framework). Until IBM and Oracle and the others started to embrace Linux (or freebsd) as an alternative to the old-world solutions, Microsoft was really the only alternative. I believe Etrade and ameritrade both use apache, BankofAmerica uses sunone which is their rebadged Netscape Enterprise Server (unless they have again rebadged some other software). I would say that Linux/FreeBSD/Unix is making some inroads, but, as linux has strengths, Microsoft is adjusting their business to address those strengths.

I don't know whether I would say that Linux will dominate the financial services area -- reenigneering what is currently working surely isn't cheap, so, why move from Microsoft if your application already works. Sure, newer initiatives and capabilities might be written in linux, but, for some companies that means maintaining two teams of programmers, ones that speak microsoft, ones that speak linux. Many organizations won't split resources like that which makes a switch or co-development difficult.

[HappySpanker]

Would like to toss in a perspective. I have owned/operated a 'vanilla' web hosting company for about 10 years now. Since day one I've offered both Windows and Linux servers, at a point was up to about 50 servers (all of which I built) all told. Maybe a 60/40 split between Linux/Win servers - all of them for ecommerce/shopping-cart sites only, we never accepted static HTML web sites.

Do not know of any web host paying a monthly licensing fee to MS. I was a 'Certified Microsoft Web Host' for a while and even then - there were never any recurring fees. Maybe they enacted some wacky new rev share thingie, but they never pitched me on it at least...

There are some big differences between Linux and Windows:

1. Cost -- Linux is free - Windows is not. Costs me about $1300 per Win server in software (OS and add-ons), zero for a Linux system.

2. Load capability -- Linux can take a MUCH higher traffic load for any CGI-based (PHP, Perl, ASP, etc) sites. I have watched Win servers brought to their knees from 10k concurrent shoppers in an ecom store when a matching Linux box was barely breaking a sweat.

3. Security -- Windows server ware comes out-of-the-box with more security issues than an untended vendor cart at a rock concert. I spend maybe 8-10 hours hardening (and rebooting) each Win server, maybe 2-3 hours on each Linux server. A properly-configured Windows ecommerce server does not even run the 'server' or 'workstation' services.

4. Ease of Admin -- Win servers can be a complete pain in the ass to admin and update. If you so much as breathe on most any software component in the system you will end up having to reboot. We have to do monthly preventative reboots on all our Win servers - yet I have Linux boxen which have not been rebooted in maybe 5 years.

5. Client demands -- Linux systems come almost out-of-the-box ready for most any CGI script a webmaster can throw at them. And you can update scripting engines automatically. Running any PHP, Perl, Python, etc. script on a Win server requires a custom install and configuration of the server and its sites. And then constant, MANUAL checking for exploits or fresh releases of any parsing/script software.

6. Databases -- running SQL (or any flavor) on a Win server is a pain in the ass. GUI interfaces and high resource demands get silly - and you pay for the privilege.

7. User base -- Linux offers an aggressive and zealous user community always ready to help. Windows is a lifestyle based in and for money and the willingness of other server admins and/or webmasters to help out is miniscule in comparison. Webmasters like to use what other webmasters talk about and use. And VERY rarely will one web hosts' setup of Win match any other host, making the sharing of solutions even harder.

MySQL runs like a rock under Linux - because that's what it was written for. PHP runs well under Linux - because that it what it was written for. Perl runs rock solid under Linux - because that it what it was written for. Only ASP and .NET (cringe) were written natively for the Win platform -- everything else was "second thought" re-written or re-purposed for Windows.

Bottom line to us has always been that Win servers require 10 times initial cost and the labor required to install and maintain a decent web server.

PHP is selected more than any other scripting language because of its feature set compared to Perl, its cost, and its existing user base and application pool.

Thus concludes my overly-opinionated rant...

[HarryM]

Originally Posted by mrhappyface

What brought up the question is that although PHP seems to disproportionately dominate the porn site world, in say the world of eCommerce or high traffic sites, writing an enterprise class website in PHP is pretty much unheard of.

I think most enterprise class websites would be using an OOP language like java or c# because they might have more than 1 person working on the program and it's so much easier to modify later on.

[webcams_brian]

Because it's easy on the Brain

[clubvin]

i believe LAMP can run on Windows also

[MadCat]

PHP is basically a very low-level entry into programming, it's easy to pick up, and as mentioned already it's free.

There's also an ease of installation; most PHP scripts these days are capable of more or less auto-installing themselves. Java apps require a lot of kicking the server around to make it do what you want, and unfortunately most Perl scripts also suffer from the same problem in the sense that it often requires command line access at the very least and root access usually to get all the additional modules installed.

Personally I write all my stuff in Perl since that's what I've been using for the past 15 years, and personally hate PHP's guts for it being such a security hole ridden piece of shit

[MadCat]

Originally Posted by HappySpanker

MySQL runs like a rock under Linux - because that's what it was written for. PHP runs well under Linux - because that it what it was written for. Perl runs rock solid under Linux - because that it what it was written for. Only ASP and .NET (cringe) were written natively for the Win platform -- everything else was "second thought" re-written or re-purposed for Windows.

Not to rain on your post but Perl runs rock solid under any sort of *nix because that's what it's written for. Perl pre-dates Linux

PHP is selected more than any other scripting language because of its feature set compared to Perl, its cost, and its existing user base and application pool.

Perl's feature set is much bigger than PHP -- it's just that PHP has a lot lower entry level, which explains why it's common to see some seriously hideous PHP scripts out there -- Java has a slightly higher entry level but can still produce seriously fucked up code, Perl and Python require that you actually know what you're doing before you get started. Not meaning that you won't see crap code in Perl or Python... but less

Thus concludes my overly-opinionated rant...

I share your opinion though. I used to work at a webhost as sysadmin and we had I think, a grand total of 600 servers up and running at some point. 10 of those were Windows machines, and we thankfully had a dedicated windows admin for it. He was busier with his 10 boxes than my coworker and me were with the remainder (Linux, OpenBSD, and a few "legacy" FreeBSD machines).

The main issue though for PHP v.s. Perl is that PHP tends to work out of the box. For Perl you need to often ninja the configuration if you want stuff to not run as a CGI script. Think FastCGI or mod_perl, think the Catalyst framework (which requires a silly amount of additional modules off CPAN that not every host has installed or will install).

Anyway... </end rant>

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by clubvin

i believe LAMP can run on Windows also

No that is not possible!
[L]inux [A]pache [M]ysql [P]hp

--

For those M$ lovers, some time ago I got a phonecall which advertised the MSCS. One of the "cool new features" has to be a build in full featured posix shell. Microsoft tried to sell this windows server editition for 1$/Installation. I have o idea how much it is now. I have not bought it, because I would not use M$ products if they would pay me money for using it.

If using an own server, it does not matter which OS you take. You always need knowledge about hardening the OS YOU use. I think you can harden windows, too. But waiting for patchdays can be a long time.

Personally I do not think there is need for PHP. If you like other languages, why not use them?

If you build something from scratch, take a look on rapid webdev frameworks: sympfony (PHP), django (python), ruby on rails (ruby)

If you like oracle, it offers a "free" db but its ~4G after installation if I remember it correctly.

Google even uses mysql somewhere (They would not commit patches if they would not use it.)

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by MadCat

... and personally hate PHP's guts for it being such a security hole ridden piece of shit

Isnt this a programmer issue?!

[tickler]

Originally Posted by poornpig

No that is not possible!
[L]inux [A]pache [M]ysql [P]hp

Strange I'm running it on my home machines so I can mirror sites before I upload.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ndows&aq=f&oq=

As far a programming languages, each has their own best fit. I work constantly with approx. 6 different ones, and know about 15-20 in total.

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by tickler

Strange I'm running it on my home machines so I can mirror sites before I upload.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ndows&aq=f&oq=

Thats not LAMP i think this is called WAMP. There IS one way running apache mysql and php on windows where I would say its ok to say LAMP. Its when you run your AMP in Cygwin. This is a unix like environment.

But these 4 letters are not worth to make a flamewar

[MadCat]

Originally Posted by poornpig

Isnt this a programmer issue?!

50/50 Some of it is programmer related, some of it is inherent in the language. PHP has a few very stupid design flaws that make certain constructs prone to getting your box owned like yesterday's newspaper

[MadCat]

Originally Posted by poornpig

Thats not LAMP i think this is called WAMP. There IS one way running apache mysql and php on windows where I would say its ok to say LAMP. Its when you run your AMP in Cygwin. This is a unix like environment.

But these 4 letters are not worth to make a flamewar

No, but they are worth one of those religious dick-size wars

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by MadCat

No, but they are worth one of those religious dick-size wars

I use RoR and database dick is 120G long

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by MadCat

... that make certain constructs ...

No comment

[justbondage]

I have been hacking my way through a 13,000 line perl script in work, it is refreshing and different and as Madcat says finding bad perl code is a hard thing to do.

However I would still embrace PHP as my language of choice, if I was doing some really high end stuff that required every little ounce of fat cut off my code and processes then I would use perl, but for 99% of the code I need to make PHP works fine.

I have also found PHP developers to be a nicer bunch, lots of perl programmers (especially ones new into it) seem to have a holier than thou attitude.

[MadCat]

@poornpig: RoR and a 120G database dick? Try Catalyst working off 5 read slave databases handling around 1Tb of data Biggest (in database size anyway) project I've worked on so far. Anyway, you sure RoR is the right choice? I'd prefer PHP over Ruby since RoR has known issues scaling up to anything near useful

@justbondage: Actually, finding bad perl code can be easy but it depends on what it is you're looking at. Most one-off (or two-off) scripts that people smack together are an exercise in how-not-to-do-it but they work. Most people writing code that will be released (either on CPAN as open source or sold as a product) will take the time to tidy up the code and most likely re-do bits of it to be more easy to read.

E.g.

do_something unless $foo eq 'bar';

will get turned into

if $foo ne 'bar' {
  do_something;
}

Purely because the latter is easier to read.

As far as the holier-than-thou attitude, yeah you got us perl guys there It tends to be a 'grown' attitude though since most non-perl coders will immediately dismiss perl as some silly sysadmin glue language -- hear enough of that, and you'll get very bitter and cynical. Coincidentally most perl coders are (or have been) system administrators, and most (if not all) sysadmins are very bitter, cynical and angry people

[poornpig]

Originally Posted by MadCat

@poornpig: RoR and a 120G database dick? Try Catalyst working off 5 read slave databases handling around 1Tb of data Biggest (in database size anyway) project I've worked on so far. Anyway, you sure RoR is the right choice? I'd prefer PHP over Ruby since RoR has known issues scaling up to anything near useful

+5G / day so 1TB is not far away.

Sure RoR is the right choice for what I am doing. The RoR does not have direct access to the database. Commenting other things would result in a