[GLLUG] PHP vs Python

[Nicholas Kwiatkowski]

One thing you have to consider is the scalability of the language, as
compared to the size of the application you are writing.  

PHP, while easy to pickup and learn starts having scalability issues once
you application becomes very complex (lots of code).  Unless you adhere to
very strict coding standards, PHP applications often can become very
unwieldy and hard to manage.  PHP does not make it easy for code re-use, and
modularization and portability of your code, as compared to other languages.

Python, while still not my preferred language, forces you to design your
code in a much more organized way.  It still is a scripting language, so
performance can be an issue if the application becomes large, but by
utilizing coding practices of code-reuse, and hopefully some OOP principals,
your code will be manageable.

Have you thought of Java, .NET or ColdFusion?  These languages take your
source code and compile them into bytecode which is significantly faster
than parsing script.  The main advantage is scalability here, and of course,
these languages all but require OOP principals, so code-reuse and
manageability is easy and helps you be more efficient when coding.

-Nick Kwiatkowski

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-user-bounces at egr.msu.edu [mailto:linux-user-bounces at egr.msu.edu]
On Behalf Of Marshal Newrock
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 12:09 PM
To: linux-user at egr.msu.edu
Subject: [GLLUG] PHP vs Python

Looking for some opinions here.  I have a fairly large app to write,
and I'm still undecided on writing it in PHP or Python.  It will
primarily be a web app, but I also want the option of command-line
access.

The advantage of PHP is that more people know it, and I think it's
faster to develop a web app in PHP.  I haven't tried writing a web app
in Python yet, though.

Python is a much cleaner language, and actively prevents many common
coding mistakes.  PHP's ability to use variables which have not
previously been defined is a point against it.

There's other arguments I can make for and against both, but I'm
curious what opinions people have.

There's also the question of frameworks.  I'm hesitant to use a
framework, though.  From what I've seen, they work great within the
limits of what they were designed to do, but as soon as you exceed
those limits, things get much more interesting, which is to say,
difficult.

-- 
Marshal Newrock
Ideal Solution, LLC - http://www.idealso.com
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