This should be required reading for anyone working on the server-side – What PHP Deployment Gets Right; this really is the final word on the subject – it really needs adding to the PHP manual, as there’s a significant gap when it comes to describing how PHP actually works, and why it’s designed to help you avoid the squirrels.
It’s also great to hear that mod_wsgi is intended to provide similar architecture (the daemon mode) – up until now was only aware of mod_neko doing something similar to PHP.
Thanks Ian!
I don’t understand what’s happened to you Harry.. There was a time a few years back when your blog posts were always genuinely interesting, timely and informative. They were something that I enjoyed reading. Heck I think you were one of the early people to really teach about how to use XMLHTTP (before that stupid AJAX name was invented).
These days however – I’m getting where I dread clicking on any of your posts because they seem to always be focused on trying to paint negative pictures about other languages, frameworks, technologies, etc. Even though this post isn’t as blatant as some previous ones you’ve posted, I still get a trollish sense from it based on the timing of this post (in relation to other recent posts in the blogosphere about difficulty with deploying other technologies and the fact the main page you link to is in effect about those same negative links).
I just wish we could have the old harry back that used to teach about things, share good code and coding practices and effectively just made PHP look better simply by trying to make PHP programmers better – not by trying to make other things look worse.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am
That’s a fair point and the short answer is probably just a result of being father of two small kids and the loss of sleep and free time that entails. There’s a much longer answer, which would be something like a review of over-hyped Internet technologies of the last 3 years but I’ll spare you that unless you really want to know.
That said, one thing I don’t like about blogging is it only really supports “positivity” – you’re effectively not allowed to be overly critical or negative, or risk being something like that angry drunk you meet, shouting at the bus stop: happy and smiley only please. So when I see a some technology that’s being hyped and I’m thinking “Wow – that truly sucks”, should I keep quiet?
January 13th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
No way! Keep up the good job of demistfying what it needs to. I wanna know.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:07 am
I certainly wasn’t meaning to imply that you should go into censorship mode. We need people to call things that suck out and there is certainly a time for posting the negatives of other technologies (or with web communities as Zed showed recently).
So please don’t take my comment in any way to imply that I think that you shouldn’t feel free to point out the negatives. It’s just that it feels like it’s been dipping that way a bit much for a bit longer than is comfortable. Every language has their pluses and minuses and certainly their place in the world of web development. It’s important for developers to understand those differences and be sure that they choose the right technology for the job. PHP gets some things right, but it also gets some things very wrong — just like the other technologies referenced.
Besides I seen to recall a time in the past when it was PHP that was the target of all the ill will from other developers who would say things about how PHP couldn’t scale, that it was a ‘toy’ language with a bunch of ’script-kiddie’ hype, etc.
That’s the nature of something new and exciting coming on the scene – it naturally gets a lot of hype — and of course backlash from other people over that same buzz. However I’ve found that if some language or web technology implements some really good ideas – it’s usually only a matter of time until those same ideas make their way into the other languages as well. So in the end – I think as web developers – we’ll all be more alike than dislike.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Two things:
> I don’t understand what’s happened to you Harry…
I do, he’s writing about other stuff, interesting stuff, like process models for example. Yeah, definitely, he’s not the same, he move on. Thank god for that. What scares me the most is that some people are still waiting for him to write about… ajax.
> before that stupid AJAX name was invented
Why is it stupid? It’s easier to pronounce than XMLHTTP :p
January 14th, 2008 at 3:26 am
When did it stop? RoR users have been among the top PHP-bashers until a couple of weeks ago. And now? Sssssssssshut the fuck up and let people laugh.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:37 am
@Ronnie mod_wsgi is a Python technology – not RoR. To my experience, the Python-crowd seldom take time to mock other languages – They are way too introspective for that. (And yes, that is a gross generalisation)
January 14th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Thanks for the clarification (I had followed the link and realised it anyway ;) but when did I quote mod_wsgi? I’m targeting the attitude he promotes not the fact that in Ruby and suddenly realised PHP got it right unlike what they ALL puked for years.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am