disadvantages to php

[brendan3eb]

PHP has been my 1st programming language and since I have learned several others or have begun to. Now I wonder why is it that more sites don't use php/mysql, what are the disadvantages and advantages. Is it security problems, not enough functions, etc.

[JasonHamilton]

I think you've got it backwards... php is getting more and more of a follwing. It's HUGE.

[brendan3eb]

I never thought of it that way, so your saying that php is so new that alot of sites haven't gotten a chance to switch to it yet (please bare with me, I'm a newbie to programming).

[drbrain]

PHP4's nearly useless object model and hideous implementation of scoping are two of its drawbacks. PHP5 has, to my knowledge, corrected these deficiencies.

Another problem with PHP4 is its poor organization of the standard library. There is no consensus on naming. String functions can start with both "str" or "str_" which makes the programming in the language annoying.

PHP is also marketed almost exclusively as a web language. Other similar languages (Ruby, Python, Perl) are marketed for general programming tasks and have a variety of libraries that assist a programmer with web-related tasks.

[jatar_k]

>> PHP is also marketed almost exclusively as a web language.

exactly

>> Other similar languages (Ruby, Python, Perl) are marketed for general programming tasks and have a variety of libraries that assist a programmer with web-related tasks.

which is why php is much better for the net, that is what it is built for. Everything else has to adapt to it. ;)

[JasonHamilton]

PHP in CLI mode allows for very easy shell scripts. I use it to do stuff from disk acess, file modification, to database work from crontab.

[drbrain]

jatar_k: Other languages can be more flexible when dealing with the web because they don't have PHP's innate bias. PHP deals with the limitations HTTP in a very specific way.

Working with the web in any other way becomes very difficult because of the built-in features and assumptions of PHP. Check out continuation-based web frameworks. You can't build a web app as easily and have it opperate as seamlessly in PHP as you can with a continuation-based framework.

If you want to do things the traditional way (PHP's focus), PHP is probably going to be on top of your toolchest.

[brendan3eb]

also, how can I tell if a website is using php or another web language, alot of sites have their urls like this /?lang=english so I can't see .php and know its php.

[Warboss Alex]

Why'd you care if it's using php or not? Aren't you more interested in what your own site uses?

And the links may well have been rewritten with ModRewrite or whatever, so a www.domain.com/?page=news may well be www.domain.com/index.htm?page=news ..not necessarily php at all.

[dcrombie]

According to security space PHP is installed on 50% of apache servers - up from 48.5% last year. You only need to look at the graph:

[securityspace.com...]

[olwen]

And in my case www.site-name.com/area/xx is a php scripts that hides the parameters altogether. You can only guess that that is the case

[dcrombie]

You can't rely on the extensions to tell you anything about the server. Try this site if you're curious:

[uptime.netcraft.com...]

[Hester]

According to security space PHP is installed on 50% of apache servers

It's also installed on Windows IIS servers, along with other platforms I imagine.