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Postings from August 2001
Nathan Torkington, High Priest of the Slippery Lighter, wrote: > Here are my reasons why the idea of using PHP on big projects scares > me: Forgive me for slipping into marketing buzzwords, but I think the most succint description of PHP's downfall is that it doesn't support an "n-tier" model. It doesn't support 3-tier and it doesn't even support 2-tier. When we talk about "n-tier" it's just another way of saying "clear separation of concerns". 2-tier is when you separate the presentation from the application logic. 3-tier is when you also abstract out the data model. PHP embeds programming logic directly into the presentation logic (code in templates). This is effectively the same thing as embedded Perl. It's very quick to get up and running, it's very powerful, but it doesn't scale well. It's 1-tier. On this level, the comparison is just. One can argue that PHP isn't as good a programming language as Perl, but that it is more closely tailored to the immediate needs of hapless "HTML Programmers" who want to add Kewl Funktionalitee to their web pages. But I think the fundamental difference goes much deeper. PHP is just an embedded language. It only exists inside template files. You don't write scripts or modules using PHP (or rather you shouldn't, but I had one email from a guy asking advice on how to write a parser in PHP so that he could write a template processing language for it!). A better comparison to make in the Perl vs PHP debate is to compare PHP with the likes of the Perl + Template Toolkit + DBI + You::Name::It::We've::Got::A::Module::Which::Does::It.pm combination. You can argue that TT gives you a decent 3-tier model and that running Perl behind-the-scenes gives you as much programming power as you'll ever need but within a framework that allows it to grow and scale well. And of course, if you don't like the Template Toolkit, then you can switch the template language to HTML::Template (a very respectable 2-tier language), or HTML::Mason (typically 1-tier but nevertheless, far more scalable than PHP), or one of the other fine modules. If you can't find a template module you like then simply write your own. That's what everyone else does. :-) In fact, wasn't that how PHP began life? PHP: Perl Hypertext Preprocessor (IIRC) > I'm not saying Perl is perfect Perl isn't perfect, but it gives you the option to use it with something that is more closely aligned to your needs. For one project it might be Perl + TT + Tangram + DBI, for another it might be Perl + HTML::Template + CGI + DBI. You can do that with Perl, but not with PHP. AThread Previous | Thread Next