Enterprise PHP

[Jeremy W.]

Harry,

Your dismissal of the "well, perhaps PHP does have too many things floating around" argument with "well, MS doesnt' support ASP3.0 anymore either" isn't really a valid equivalency. I think I see what you were trying to do (open source projects die, so did ASP.old), however it's not the same.

Companies had 4 years of warning before Win2K3, which is basically the "get in the right millenium" upgrade. Most companies won't even do the full 2k3 upgrade until next year (ours won't, though we'll begin with simple ones like Exchange and AD this year).

That's 5 years of notice, really, and support for ASP continues to this day, but will likely die out within 2 years of 2K3's release. That's really 6-7 years of "support", which isn't quite the same as a PHP project which just dies, and for a company (and for me as a developer and IT manager) that is a very big difference.

We've also covered the "oh, this language teaches you more about this" and "this one teaches you more about that" and "good developers should know x, y and z (at least as well as they know x)" argument many times. While it's true, good developers should know a lot of things, but the biggest thing a good developer should know is what tool is right for which job.

Personally, I like CFML better than PHP for enterprise work, as well as just for regular sites. It fulfills PHP's goal even better than PHP does: a quick and dirty site, except that it allows for a greater separation between presentation and logic, out of the box.

PHP's free, though, which is a very big plus. I still prefer CFM though, wonderful language/platform for development.

J

[HarryF]

There are plenty of dumb enterprises out there. I know, I work for one.

Think we need to start this whole discussion again beginning at this point Working for one too and worse the middle managers who get final say have a little knowledge (making them [i]very[i] dangerous).

Some whining...

For example I've got one guy who's determined to get us to store some critical data with MySQL, despite the fact that everything else is stored in Oracle. He sees this as a cost saving (Oracle is expenisive you know), despite the fact we've already paid for an Oracle license and this just means adding some tables.

Next up is roughly $600,000 we're paying to buy a new Solaris cluster despite the fact we've repeatedly told "them" we just need some more processor and memory at a cost of about $20000. They're refusing to back down because in the past we've had "problems" and what do you do if you have "problems" - throw hardware at it. That saves some middle managers job for having made the "right" decision but this could kill our project, putting us way into the red next time someone looks at our turnover.

The other recent special was the guy who told our lead developer he didn't understand web services. That's despite the fact we're working with XML-RPC and SOAP to pass data around an Intranet.

Guess the point is what motivates some "enterprises", by which I mean companies with 1000+ staff and a pseudo military heirarchy, is often anything but good sense. Politics, fear and ignorance often play bigger parts. When the guy who's holding the purse has zero IT understanding, that's what you get.

Probably I'm being way too general here though.

Considering whether PHP being "enterprise ready" think it's a sliding scale which depends more on the culture of the company considering it, rather than PHP's feature set or specific technical issues.

Some companies have a culture which is open to technologies like PHP (typically ones where Perl has already made an impact) - think these are often Unix shops that have an overall view that if you want IT to work, you have to understand and "own" it yourself. So for them PHP is enterprise ready.

For others, perhaps those who believe that outsourcing is a successful model, there's a view that their IT infrastructure is somehow equivalent to the electricity or gas supply - it either works or you call the company to tell them to fix it. The culture here is to be deliberately ignorant and tell that to the supplier: "I don't care how it works. I just want it to work". For them technologies like PHP are definately a bad choice.

And there's probably a whole spectrum of cultures in between...

[mgkimsal]

Spend? No, I don't think so (and being a CIO I am in a position to judge They like Big Budgets. Give me a Budget of 2M, and I utilize 1.8M, then I save the company 10%, and use that argument to prove how cool I am & can be entrusted with more money . But thats a difficult game and a different topic.

Hrm. Generally the (admittedly few) C-level execs I've worked with would usually prefer to spend on multiple projects to see results. Not spending for spending's sake necessarily, but if you've got extra money and other worthwhile projects to address, then do it. That's the pattern I've seen and experienced, but I'm *NOT* a CIO at a large multimillion dollar corp, so take that for what it's worth.

Thats the problem. PHP doesn't AFAIK do transactions, so arguing that some other layer (vendor) should do it is shooting yourself in the foot. There are many good reasons why databases should not manage business transactions. Ever heard of two-phase commit? There is no reason why transactions shouldn't be offered by a programming language, unless you concede that the language in question is not and never will be targeted at that market. Which is why IMHO MySQL now can support transactions.

I don't see VBScript *as a language* can support transactions - it uses an external component to manage them. And from what I recall of Java, the language itself doesn't support transactions, but uses external components.

That's missing the point. Mentoring / Fostering / Developing PHP programmers to where exactly?

To the standards the organization would like them to be at or achieve.

With every other major web dev. language you can put a certifcate under your activities. Then you can measure success or lack of it. This is *exactly* the kind of thing managers should be good at.

But beyond checking if someone is up to date or not with certs, there's not much more you can do with that. I'm not saying they're completely useless, but a person can have all the certs in the world, but if they don't do things the way the company needs them done, or adheres to company standards or fails in other company-defined measures of achievement, he's failed.

Maybe, yes. But then again, most companies are not dot coms, innovating is what they do in the design rooms, not in their programmng pens.

Keeping the topic at least partially revolving around PHP, I'd say that most people using PHP are doing so in a web (read - 'dot com' or similar extension) environment. You can certainly be innovative in design and then implement that in PHP (or other languages).

Well, for a certificationn to be recognized and gain rapid acceptance it must be from an accredited certifier. And who does the accreditation? As you say, nobody owns PHP, so nobody can accredit a certification or training vendor.

Not saying it can't be done at all - it's about trust. Doesn't matter if New Horizons is 'sun certified' if no one trusts sun. Or ever better 'foobar certified', if no one has heard of foobar in that field.

You only need the whole shebang if you believe that PHP should pave the way to web domination. I don't hold that view, I believe that if Rasmus or Zend or whoever started accredition schemes, then part of the appeal of PHP would die immediately. But then I accept that PHP will be at the bottom of the web language food chain, something like PHP -> Coldfusion -> ASP -> PERL -> ASP.NET -> J2EE. (And that is soleley based on the hourly rate of programmers in those languages, not the capabilities of the language).

Hrm. I've been banned on here for talking dollars, but you're talking relative positioning. In our experience, for the above to hold true, *every* language up there would need to command US three figures per hour then, from a consulting-shop standpoint. From 'I'm an employee someplace' that might be closer to the truth, but the PHP/CF/ASP/Perl would, in my observations, be all on the same level these days.

[acostin]

We are conducting an open survey on PHP Enterprise readyness.

You can find more about it here: http://www.interakt.ro/index_news_166.html

[HarryF]

Hi Alex,

One problem I have with the survey - it seems to make the assumption the the reader works for some kind of web development shop, selling PHP apps to third party customers e.g.

What is the usual type of client that buys a PHP solution?

Think there are many who develop PHP apps within their company either purely for an Intranet / Extranet or for their company's web site with no plans to sell the app itself to anyone. From that perspective PHP is simply a tool which is part of some much broader product or service being sold - a prime example being Lufthansa (http://cms.lufthansa.com/fly/de/en/index) or even Yahoo.

Think the survey needs to reflect that, either by being broader or having a first question which determines which form you use.

[sweatje]

Think there are many who develop PHP apps within their company either purely for an Intranet / Extranet or for their company's web site with no plans to sell the app itself to anyone. From that perspective PHP is simply a tool which is part of some much broader product or service being sold - a prime example being Lufthansa (http://cms.lufthansa.com/fly/de/en/index) or even Yahoo.

Think the survey needs to reflect that, either by being broader or having a first question which determines which form you use.

Spot on Exactly the point I made here http://www.phparch.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=214

[acostin]

Hello Harry,

You are right, we have designed the survey for this kind of software development company - and it was not the brightest decision [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Finally I have added per client request some options to the survey questions to reflect the "internal/inhouse PHP usage". However, as we are pretty late in the survey lifetime, we will not be able to make major structural changes.

On the other hand, congratulations for the excellent PHP overview published here on sitepoint! You should have the www.php.net site link to it. If you manage this, mail me with the procedure as I would like to have our survey published there, too

Alexandru

[BDKR]

At the end of the day, I think Java and .NET are more suited to enterprise development (for those who think there's no difference, I'd wager you've never worked with application/load balancing servers, right?), but that PHP/ASP/CFM can do it as well.
J

Well, I feel that PHP is JUST AS SUITED as Java and .NET. Also, I designed and developed a load balanced cluster that uses PHP a good deal for a good many things.

I also feel that the load balancer shouldn't know or care if the server is written in C, PHP, Python, or *gasp* Java.

PHP is enterprise ready and is being used in our enterprise right now!

Cheers,
BDKR

[Jeremy W.]

La la la.

No offence, but I said PHP is enterprise ready a half dozen times in this thread. But, .NET and Java are, to quote the quote you just quoted "more suited to enterprise development", which is quite obviously true.

J

[firepages]

So, would PHP be cheaper than .NET in various situations? Certainly not in all. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that it would only really be cheaper if you already had PHP-ready staff on hand, and if you were already in an xNix environment and if you hadn't already invested in other infrastructure.

PHP's free, though, which is a very big plus

would you make up your mind there please [img]images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[M. Johansson]

Well, I feel that PHP is JUST AS SUITED as Java and .NET. Also, I designed and developed a load balanced cluster that uses PHP a good deal for a good many things.

I also feel that the load balancer shouldn't know or care if the server is written in C, PHP, Python, or *gasp* Java.

PHP is enterprise ready and is being used in our enterprise right now!

Cheers,
BDKR

We've agreed in this thread that PHP is enterprise ready, but you won't have me agreeing that it's just as capable as Java or .NET. Mainly, because PHP is a web-development language. It cannot, unlike Java/.net do deskop applications, which are commonly used in the enterprise. It also lacks IDE solutions of the caliber .NET and Java, and doesn't have a good class library. How can you clain that PHP is JUST AS SUITED as Java or .NET?

[Karl]

Actually it can do desktop applications fine using the GTK Widget library - Sure you're going to tell me that you need the PHP binary installed and you need the GTK stuff installed, but you need the JRE or CLR installed, so it's the same thing. Not saying it's as good as Java or .NET as I haven't used PHP-GTK yet, but it can do desktop graphical applications.

[M. Johansson]

Actually it can do desktop applications fine using the GTK Widget library - Sure you're going to tell me that you need the PHP binary installed and you need the GTK stuff installed, but you need the JRE or CLR installed, so it's the same thing. Not saying it's as good as Java or .NET as I haven't used PHP-GTK yet, but it can do desktop graphical applications.

Sorry, forgot about that one. GTK has two fat problems, though, and that is that it lacks an good solid IDE (to my knowledge) and it's an incredibly painful experience to design desktop interfaces without one and the big fat one - it isn't in a stable release, which makes it volatile to use in a larger environment. PHP is getting there, sure, but Java and .NET is still more suited.

[Karl]

If you were a saddist you could always call the Win32 API drawing functions if you were runinng on Windows

You are right though, both Java and .NET are better suited to GUI development as they were built to use GUI from the start, PHP is moving in the right direction though and as long as they don't do anything awful like Swing we'll be fine (I have serious issues with Swing, it's a long story).

[M. Johansson]

If you were a saddist you could always call the Win32 API drawing functions if you were runinng on Windows [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I'd rather stick my eyes out, thank you.

[Karl]

Yeah, it's not a pleasent experience using the Windows API for graphics, although for other stuff it's not too bad, used to do quite a lot of work with it before I got hooked on web dev and web hosting.

[firepages]

GTK has two fat problems, though, and that is that it lacks an good solid IDE (to my knowledge) and it's an incredibly painful experience to design desktop interfaces without one and the big fat one - it isn't in a stable release, which makes it volatile to use in a larger environment.

true and truer. (there is Glade for windows for the interface but you have to connect the dots (signals/logic) yourself.)

I for one would not suggest that at this stage that PHP is JUST AS SUITED as JAVA , not sure about .NET as its a bit early to tell but I believe you anyway

BUT , I think the positive from this thread as compared to others in the past is the general acceptance that PHP IS suitable for use in 'Enterprise Scale apps' , a long way from the 'its not compiled so its a toy' threads of not so long ago and thats a positive step.

Back to php-gtk , the advances PHP5 will bring to mainstream web-applications are doubled when applied to php-gtk , development on php-gtk is pretty much stalled around waiting for PHP5 , you can get php-gtk working with the current PHP5 beta's , but I think when its stable that work on porting GTK2 to php-gtk with will begin in earnest, at which point look out.

Thats not to say that you cant write your C/C++ apps for the desktop and still integrate those with your PHP based enterprise application (with or without the embed sapi), I would rather write them in PHP as that makes sense to me but hey Python , TCL whatever rocks your boat , it does not necc'y have to be written in PHP to work with it , in fact thats one of PHP's biggest advantages.

[Jeremy W.]

My opinion on PHP hasn't really changed that much over the years. I still feel it can do much more than what it's suited to do: ie what it's actually useful for in an enterprise environment is much smaller than what is' capable of.

That will change over time, but that same constraint doesn't really apply to Java or .NET, IMO. My experience says that that which Java and .NET can do, is basically suited to enterprise development, and I don't see the same things with PHP.

It seems like from most of the PHP'ers posts that you have to "be in Enterprise mode" in order to create an enterprise app, and you need to learn that style of development.

Java and .NET don't really have that barrier, which is both a plus and a minus as it means a much steeper learning curve (or at least a very different one).

Not to knock PHP at all, or to say it's not suited to Enterprise development, I just don't class it as being in the same boat as Java and .NET.

Certainly the same river though, it's just a different kind of craft. If that craft fits you as a developer and/or you as a company then there is no reason not to use it, and nobody should look down on you for doing so.

J

[Dr Livingston]

Umm... I can agree with your point about Java and .NET already being enterprise on the fact that they both have the available tools and whatever ready and waiting to be used...

And the idea that Java for example, which I aspire to learn more about has a steeper learning curve is true, very true in fact.

Also another of your points about PHP not being there so to speak, ie Java and .NET doesn't need to try to 'be' enterprise ? Fair enough though us PHP'ers as you describe us are trying though...

Just takes time to adjust from developing small to medium sized applications as per requirements and to learn what is exactly required to be more enterprise that what we have thus far learnt.

You've got to remember that due to the fact that PHP is relatively easy to pick up and learn there are a lot of ordanary people out there with no previous programming experience who PHP is their first break into development and as such they have no idea of programming practices for example...

... So they're not well informed about development structuring over a fairly sized project yes ?

No offence intended folks but the above point is very valid I think ?

[M. Johansson]

Dr. Livingston, what exactly is your point? I don't get it.

[Dr Livingston]

My Point ?

It seems like from most of the PHP'ers posts that you have to "be in Enterprise mode" in order to create an enterprise app, and you need to learn that style of development.

My view is just this...

You've got to remember that due to the fact that PHP is relatively easy to pick up and learn there are a lot of ordanary people out there with no previous programming experience who PHP is their first break into development and as such they have no idea of programming practices for example...

... So they're not well informed about development structuring over a fairly sized project yes ?

Before this I made the point that we PHP developer's are trying at least to lean more towards the requirements of enterprise development though it just takes time.

Like, are you having difficulties or something huh ?

[Phil.Roberts]

I think what he's trying to say is that for PHP to be used in an Enterprise situation the programmer will have had to learn the nuts and bolts requirements for such situations from the ground up, with noxt to no help from either language constraints or coding tools. Whether such a learning curve results in a more robust coder is open to debate however....

[Dr Livingston]

Basically yes I suppose ? Myself for example I do not know enough about the enterprise since I have only experience with upto medium sized projects;

Now if I had to move forwards to the enterprise level I'd first need to gain the skills for example to develop at that level yes ?

But as I stated earlier there are a lot of people coming over to PHP from scratch not knowing the basis of what enterprise level development is nor involves.

If your already at this level and are moving to PHP as an additional skills base then as discussed on this very post, PHP is still some way to go yet.

Seams a few folk have difficulty with understanding my points I'm making aye ? Umm... That's just me I suppose and how I see things really

[M. Johansson]

I think what he's trying to say is that for PHP to be used in an Enterprise situation the programmer will have had to learn the nuts and bolts requirements for such situations from the ground up, with noxt to no help from either language constraints or coding tools. Whether such a learning curve results in a more robust coder is open to debate however....

Ah, crystal clear. Thanks.

[M. Johansson]

Seams a few folk have difficulty with understanding my points I'm making aye ? Umm... That's just me I suppose and how I see things really [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Off Topic:

Note: This is VERY OT, so let's not have it run away too much.
No, it's how you write things. Your core point makes total sense. This is not to attack you or anything - but statements like "Basically yes, I suppose ?" makes no sense at all. Does this mean "Yes", "yes, but could you please clarify?" or "Yes, except for two things"? Gee, I'm starting to sound like mmi! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]