Comments on: PHP vs Python — Where Opinions Aren’t Wanted

By: tim

tim — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:19:38 +0000

@pcdinh

see pydev for Eclipse, includes code completion for python.

In PHP’s defence it has (many) rough edges but it came be written used properly, Zend Framework provides a very good MVC implementation and web applications can be written entirely OO. That said of recently started using Django.

For my latest project we started with PHP5 + Zend Framework after we had a simple prototype we where not entirely happy and have since ported the application to DJANGO. I’ve only been using it for a week, but I don’t think php will ever get a look in again.

Another big thing that has yet to be touched on here is that in a large scale web application there is always going to be a requirement for background processing, be it triggered by the db or a cron job, while php can technically be used for this task Python is a fair better solution. Personally I’d rather stick to one language for a project so just on this point PHP not an option.

By: piotr

piotr — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:50:36 +0000

I know many languages, but for me PHP is what “C” should look like. “C” idea and future has been destroyed by “pointers”.. PHP does not support this feature and… it works.
I don’t understand where you see PHP syntax problems. For me it is so clean, almost as Pascal.

There is a lot of messy PHP code on the net, because it is popular and can be used by amatours… because it is easy to learn and productive too.

There are a lot of good frameworks for PHP, including CakePHP, you should try it before judging it.

I agree with Oscar Duron that it can be a problem to introduce OOP in a large scale to PHP world. In Object Pascal OOP was the only solution, so there was no possible exception (Turbo Vision). In PHP you can even have problems with finding good structured code (functions) because you can mix HTML with PHP. But it doesn’t mean you cannot do it correctly by yourself.

Python has many nice features - I’m not using it, but I have read many articles about it. The only thing I really hate in this language that stops me from trying it is it’s positional syntax (white space shouldn’t mean anything important).

By: oscar duron

oscar duron — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:49:13 +0000

I am late to this patty (php programer) after 27 years programing (basic,dbaseIII,clipper,etc.)
I have been searching about ruby and python because the fact there are many things about php that just make programing sometimes really hard. Yes, there was a big step on the kind of OO, and error handling routines in recent PHP releases, but late.
All languages have obscure sides so there are many ways to compare them, all have bugs, the lack of good documentation, etc. But from all the winner is PHP with its horrible syntax.
Now, I know PHP is the winner (popularity) but even if it were the number one in OO, the fact is that 90% or more of the PHP programers do not use or know about Objects, and of course if you check more than 90% of the php opensource apps, are only functional, not OO.
By nature, 80% (my experience) of the php programers will never use Objects as neither relational databases and neither transactions. It took 10 years for programers to start using SQL, the same will take for php programers to start using Objects, relations and transactions. So only the real programers (redbones) and the new kids in town are getting into the wagon of OO, and in that case Ruby on Rails is to this programmers what was PHP3 in its conception in the past. So the point is, Python is the programing language for Experts, but the only chance for Python to get the popularity and support needed worldwide to get a better position is through Django, otherwise, the unstable, inmature, webtoy of Ruby on Rails will be the programming language (framework) of preference in the years to come. Either way, if you need formal, comercial, trouble free applications, you need Python, because it has already solved many problems and is stable in really hard situations. Not the same for Ruby, up to this days still have serious problems about memory, threads, networking, etc. It seem they are working on that because of Rails popularity, but it takes time, and that not counting on the serious problem of Rails itself. When PHP 6 will be ready to the level of Python? Never, because it is funcional from inside, it will have always many barriers to be ported to a 100% OO environment, and remember, they have to support more than 50% of the todays web applications working already. Why Python? please change that name, I don´t know, maybe Cobra would be a better name.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:55:57 +0000

I have been a programming for more than 25 years. I have programmed professionally in Basic, Fortran, several Assembly languages, Pascal, C, Perl, Java (i’m a certified Java programmer), PHP, Javascript, and Python.
The language I like the LEAST is PHP (Basic and Fortran aren’t too hot either, but they’re old… like me :). I would take Perl over PHP ANY DAY! But my Favorite language is DEFINATELY Python! Python and Django are GREAT!

By: howard00

howard00 — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:43:22 +0000

Take a look at this..www.qcodo.com. I agree that PHP usually is a frikken mess, but qcodo makes it beautiful.

By: olivier

olivier — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:41:34 +0000

PHP sucks. It does. Find a single programmer experienced in both PHP and python that would vouch for PHP. Find a single programmer that gleefully switched from python to PHP!

I have programmed a lot on PHP with symfony, one the best frameworks for PHP.

I programmed much less with python for the web but i’ve been MUCH more productive with python and django.

PHP has never been created for big frameworks. At best it’s a botched up templating language if you want to add some dynamic features to an existing HTML page. Doing big sites like facebook or yahoo in PHP is just asking for troubles.

If you tell people who think that python is better than php that they are not good at PHP you completely miss the point.

Lastly, I hate the of arguments of the type: “well, no language is perfect and every language has his plus and minus sides”. This kind of reasoning will get you nowhere. It is true that python and, say, ruby are comparable and similar. It is true that python is neither better nor worse than C because they achieve different purpose.

But it is true that python is much better than PHP. Why not admit it?

By: david

david — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:08:54 +0000

No. You are wrong. PHP sucks.

Just kidding. I think it is great that ‘non-professional’ developers get into coding, if they do it via PHP, great! They will learn about more advanced languages as they traverse the software universe. It’s all good. Would I use PHP (anymore)? Never.

By: João Marcus

João Marcus — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:28:34 +0000

PHP is a horrible language. It doesn’t mean that one can’t build good PHP-based web apps. It’s horrible, but it’s dead-easy to deploy and host, has lots of libs, and lots of coders.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:27:22 +0000

Perl completely fucking useless. It’s not good for web apps, it’s outdone for shell scripting, and it’s not very useful as a scripting language??????
Please tell that to a gazillion bio oriented programmers who can’t live without bio-perl, catalyst, cpan and all the perl based scripts, api’s etc etc.
Don’t forget, a lot of python modules found their roots in perl modules. Don’t get me wrong. I mix python, c++, java and perl for the above but to classify perl as fucking useless is a slip of the tongue at least.
(you might have noticed I banned PHP from the above

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:28:58 +0000

You list two serious problems with the design of PHP (globals, lack of namespace) and then state that nothing is wrong with PHP. And the fact that you think people can get more work done with Lua than Perl just shows how far you have your head up your own ass.