Google uses PHP!

**slider** · Nov 18, 2002, 01:01

Originally posted by M. Johansson
So he should just site there and shut up while someone makes a totally unfounded remark about the quality of PHP?

I could only find one reply in this thread that this statement could be directed at, and that was just a very generalized statement which was clearly opinion, not to mention it was posted after Jeremy's entrance. IMO Jeremy made a pretty good *** of himself in this thread (and you jumped on the back of his wagon). This thread had nothing to do with .NET yet he had to step in here and piss on the people that are excited to see PHP doing bigger and better things. I normally enjoy the exchanges between Jeremy and Harry, as I've learned a lot from the information they try to share/school each other on. This thread may have been a pat-on-the-back thread, but it was nowhere near a rub-it-in or throw-it-in-their-faces kind of thing. It didn't have a single mention of .NET nor did I get any implications of "PHP wins vs. .NET! Yay!!!"

Originally posted by M. Johansson
Thank reason Jeremy is here to create some kind of eqilubrium, since the PHP community is really rabid about PHP. PHP is a wonderful language, but that doesn't mean that everything else sucks.

So the hell what if the PHP community is really rabid about PHP? This thread wasn't rabid. Show me one response in this thread -- hell, show me one post in this entire forum -- where someone says everything else sucks and they weren't just talking out their ***. The two of you are essentially fabricating your arguments so that you can argue them and attempt to pull the carpet out from under the pro-PHP'ers.

Crap like this isn't boring, it's very annoying.

Originally posted by Zoef
Who else of the 'biggies' uses Php?

I've heard somewhere, Amazon, is this true?

Let's make a list... That might help to change the minds of some providers who won't support it...

Rik

This has been done to death. Check here, here and here for some idea. And it's notable in the one thread I just linked that Jeremy also comes out fists flying and then backs down from his 3am rant.

My friends, if you're trying to enlighten people to the benefits and advantages of .NET then you're doing it like a little kid does when he throws a tantrum to get his mom to give him the cookie he wants. There are numerous budding developers on these forums (myself included) that have the potential to move into any one of the many arenas of web and corporate development, and you've done nothing to convert (not the best word there, but it fits) me to .NET. What could have had that effect was if you made some kind of attempt to instruct us on why and how .NET is a viable alternative to PHP for Google. (Remember the original topic of this thread?)

I think that people tend to trumpet pro-PHP sentiment because it's something they believe in. You obviously believe in .NET, though you're mostly coming across as not believing in PHP. Get rid of the negativity and your positivity will come across with real weight, not to mention you'll stop pissing people off.

**M. Johansson** · Nov 18, 2002, 01:16

Originally posted by slider
I could only find one reply in this thread that this statement could be directed at, and that was just a very generalized statement which was clearly opinion, not to mention it was posted after Jeremy's entrance. IMO Jeremy made a pretty good *** of himself in this thread (and you jumped on the back of his wagon). This thread had nothing to do with .NET yet he had to step in here and piss on the people that are excited to see PHP doing bigger and better things. I normally enjoy the exchanges between Jeremy and Harry, as I've learned a lot from the information they try to share/school each other on. This thread may have been a pat-on-the-back thread, but it was nowhere near a rub-it-in or throw-it-in-their-faces kind of thing. It didn't have a single mention of .NET nor did I get any implications of "PHP wins vs. .NET! Yay!!!"So the hell what if the PHP community is really rabid about PHP? This thread wasn't rabid. Show me one response in this thread -- hell, show me one post in this entire forum -- where someone says everything else sucks and they weren't just talking out their ***. The two of you are essentially fabricating your arguments so that you can argue them and attempt to pull the carpet out from under the pro-PHP'ers.

The discussion went like this:
"Who else of the 'biggies' uses Php?"
"err, i only know of Yahoo! and Google"
"On the growth of Php, look here: http://www.php.net/usage.php"
"Well then, what more proof do you want? PHP is a great language that is not too hard to learn but is also very powerful."
"Once again PHP wins because more 14 year olds use it than smoke cigarettes."

While I agree it was bordering on a hijack, I think it's not too unreasonable to point out the absurdity in the "Quantity = Quality" logic of http://www.php.net/usage.php.

And with "rabid PHP community", I meant in general, not this thread.

**Zoef** · Nov 18, 2002, 01:18

Thanks for the here,here, and here, slider.

And for bothering with this 'newbies' question. I'm afraid, once the big boys started to play this whole thread became rather tedious.

Have a banana

Greetings

Rik

**slider** · Nov 18, 2002, 01:21

I disagree that the PHP community in general is rabid. Over-zealous at times, maybe.

**HarryF** · Nov 18, 2002, 01:48

Eeeeh - those are not even part of the PHP library! They are external extensions which need to be installed on the server!!!!!

External extensions have an API which is distributed with the PHP source. They have been officially selected by the PHP group for inclusion in the distribution and rightly they need to be installed on the server rather than bundled together into a giant piece of bloatware - install them as you need them. So sorry, criticising PHP for an extension being external ain't gonna fly - it's common and good practice with many parts of PHP, including the two XML parsers and the XSLT parser.

There's a big difference between that an what .NET has to offer to compare with those extensions. Ftpwise there's some third party modules (I saw prices starting at $150+ for something that isn't experimental) from suppliers who's names you won't recognise.

For flash, all there is this control which is capable of generating the HTML which embebs a flash object... compared to PHP where you can generate an entire flash movie.

PDFwise there.... nothing. Zilch. 0%

You are not dependent on SOAP - .NET can store variable data in an SQL server, and that by simply changing one variable in the server settings.

Sure you can implement over multiple servers with a database in any language. But you need to implement it. MSession is a solution geared specifically to maintaining state on multiple web servers. It's best explained by this guide: http://www.mohawksoft.com/phoenix/msession.pdf - and no - .NET has no equivalent.

f something built with .NET breaks in any other browser, it's because of really bad coding from the developer, not the fault of .NET.

To summarize an elloquently put point from here:

They are touting that the server controls detect the browser and render the appropriate html and script. Well they f***ing don't, and what I am hoping is that some poor b***ard doesn't wait until he/she has a project near completion to test for other browsers because they took Microsoft's word for it.

And...

ASP.NET is a templating solution?

Hmmm...

Code:

    <form runat=server>

        <asp:DataGrid id="dataGrid1" runat="server"
          BorderColor="black"
          BorderWidth="1"
          GridLines="Both"
          CellPadding="3"
          CellSpacing="0"
          HeaderStyle-BackColor="#aaaadd"
        />

    </form>

Tell me - what programming language is that? C#? VB.NET? J# ?!? ... oh no - it's a template tag isn't it. Would it be easier to see if it looked like;

Code:

    <form runat=server>

        {asp:DataGrid id="dataGrid1" runat="server"
          BorderColor="black"
          BorderWidth="1"
          GridLines="Both"
          CellPadding="3"
          CellSpacing="0"
          HeaderStyle-BackColor="#aaaadd"
        /}

    </form>

Seeing it yet? How marvellous this templating solution is summed up by the mighty IBuySpy Portal - I lost count as 50 templates...

Anyone work out why it's called IBuySpy yet? Because these are the three words closest to a certain mans heart...

**trickie** · Nov 18, 2002, 03:21

If it is going to be an argument then here goes...

I prefer to use Open Source tools like PHP, because of an ethical stance that i take. I can't see a problem with using .NET if that is the solution most fitted to the problem/task, but i do see a problem with supporting MS and there products.

MS is a monopolyizing company that in my opinion has made several unethical business decisions and as a developer i cannot force my self to endorse the use of their products. I will use them if i have to, but the only reason i would actively endorse PHP (though i wouldn't call it rabid heckling) is from an ethical standpoint.

**siteguru** · Nov 18, 2002, 03:44

Just saw this when installing the toolbar. Let's hope their just using the PHP3 extension not the build!

So Google uses PHP eh? Seems to be only for the toolbar installation, certainly not for the actual search utility itself (for which Google is known). Nevertheless, it is ...

One small step for Google; One giant leap for the PHP community.

(MJ)

(HF)

**Tweakin** · Nov 18, 2002, 05:27

Originally posted by M. Johansson

Those are definetly drawbacks of the .NET platform, and I recognize them as such. But those drawbacks only apply in certain cases - i.e. where you are stuck with a Unix platform.

Nothing wrong with this, I have just never heard anyone say 'stuck with a Unix platform' in regards to development and be serious. Its generally much the other way around.
..

PHP vs .NET, as has already been mentioned, is kinda silly. You are talking about two languages being developed from completely different angles. In fact, their uses on the web are indeed the only thing making them reasonably similar. Well this may seem like quite a base for comparasion, it is not. Anyone of you could run on to IRC and join the php development channel; then ask a lead developer to compare PHP vs .NET and be laughed off the internet and back to your cryons and coloring book.

PHP is a great solution, and you can't beat what its done for communities around the net. I love, support, and use the language. With that, however, I cant denie the ungodly amounts of poor code that has become of it. Knowing I have made great little apps and things like phpmyadmin or these boards came from PHP, though, is the other side of the coin that everyone needs to see and understand before the pack of youngsters asking how they can make hit counters get them down.

This will be the last time, I hope, I respond to another one of these threads.

**Eric.Coleman** · Nov 18, 2002, 06:07

Originally posted by siteguru

(MJ) (HF)

Ehehehehehehehehe...

**HarryF** · Nov 18, 2002, 06:58

Alright!

Now all we need is to get the smiley itself updated.

Originally posted by siteguru
(MJ) (HF)

You know Mattias - there's a website in this (which will have to be written Perl/CGI or JSP) - we use it as a platform to abuse each other... whatdayasay?

**M. Johansson** · Nov 18, 2002, 09:23

Originally posted by HarryF
Alright! Now all we need is to get the smiley itself updated.

You know Mattias - there's a website in this (which will have to be written Perl/CGI or JSP) - we use it as a platform to abuse each other... whatdayasay?

hahaha - that's actually a pretty funny idea. eternalbattleofharryvsmattias.com

And it would be in JSP.

**M. Johansson** · Nov 18, 2002, 09:42

Originally posted by HarryF
External extensions have an API which is distributed with the PHP source. They have been officially selected by the PHP group for inclusion in the distribution and rightly they need to be installed on the server rather than bundled together into a giant piece of bloatware - install them as you need them. So sorry, criticising PHP for an extension being external ain't gonna fly - it's common and good practice with many parts of PHP, including the two XML parsers and the XSLT parser.

Hosts have a tendency not to install those little buggers, but otherwise, you are right. Still, they are third-party extensions, and not part of PHP per se. I just think that really ought to be pointed out.

There's a big difference between that an what .NET has to offer to compare with those extensions. Ftpwise there's some third party modules (I saw prices starting at $150+ for something that isn't experimental) from suppliers who's names you won't recognise.

For flash, all there is this control which is capable of generating the HTML which embebs a flash object... compared to PHP where you can generate an entire flash movie.

PDFwise there.... nothing. Zilch. 0%

I admit all that. That .NET doesn't have support for PDF is pathetic and I hope someone steps in and codes something good soon enough. .NET is new, and it will happen sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

I think we all recognize that .NET is young and therefore lacks a lot of third-party stuff. It's a drawback, but it's really quite natural, and will correct itself over time. Until then, if you need that stuff, use a web service, use another platform, or why not do what the PHP community here suggests very often: Code it yourself.

Sure you can implement over multiple servers with a database in any language. But you need to implement it. MSession is a solution geared specifically to maintaining state on multiple web servers. It's best explained by this guide: http://www.mohawksoft.com/phoenix/msession.pdf - and no - .NET has no equivalent.

I think you misunderstood me. I meant that .NET has native support for it. You just change the mode attribute of the Sessionstateelement to SQLServer, and you are done. No more implementation needed. No need to use some third party software, like with PHP.

Code:

    <form runat=server>

        <asp:DataGrid id="dataGrid1" runat="server"
          BorderColor="black"
          BorderWidth="1"
          GridLines="Both"
          CellPadding="3"
          CellSpacing="0"
          HeaderStyle-BackColor="#aaaadd"
        />

    </form>

Tell me - what programming language is that? C#? VB.NET? J# ?!? ... oh no - it's a template tag isn't it. Would it be easier to see if it looked like;[/b]

It's XML.

But yes, that is templating, and a mighty good form of it, too. Would you rather have the code imbedded into the layout?

I never meant that ASP.NET didn't offer templating. What I meant was that ASP.NET is much, MUCH more than a templating system.

**copycat** · Nov 18, 2002, 10:25

Everyone considering using PHP should read this article:
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/6/php_suspend.html

**slider** · Nov 18, 2002, 10:56

Originally posted by copycat
Everyone considering using PHP should read this article:
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/6/php_suspend.html

That's great!

**seanf** · Nov 18, 2002, 12:06

Originally posted by Jeremy W.
Sean, we WEREN'T an MS company

What was your 'main' language before switching to .NET?

Originally posted by M. Johansson
And if Ximian doesn't screw up the Mono Project, drawback 1 and 2 should be disappearing in the near future.

Do you really think so?

Originally posted by siteguru

So Google uses PHP eh? Seems to be only for the toolbar installation, certainly not for the actual search utility itself (for which Google is known)

Did anyone say it was?

Originally posted by M. Johansson

Hosts have a tendency not to install those little buggers

Can you tell us how many host you sampled before coming to your conclusion? I've been on plenty of hosts with Ming/Zlib/Bzip and more enabled

Sean

**Skunk** · Nov 18, 2002, 12:35

Originally posted by M. Johansson
That .NET doesn't have support for PDF is pathetic and I hope someone steps in and codes something good soon enough. .NET is new, and it will happen sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Just as an aside, the nicest PHP PDF library I've seen doesn't rely on external modules at all - it's written in 100% "pure" PHP and it's an absolute charm to work with (performance is excellent as well so combined with a bit of caching it should be deployable on even very high traffic sites). I mention it because, being written in PHP, I imagine it shouldn't be too big a job to convert it to a .NET language (or even wait for PHP.NET and compile it from that).

http://ros.co.nz/pdf/

**FHJim** · Nov 18, 2002, 13:00

Originally posted by Skunk
http://ros.co.nz/pdf/

Skunk, Thanks very much for this link. I have been wanting to look for something like this and there it is

Thanks again

**M. Johansson** · Nov 18, 2002, 14:24

Originally posted by seanf
Do you really think so?

Yup. If Ximian doesn't blow it, and produces a production-level, open source implementation of the .NET framework for Linux, porting it to other platforms will be a piece of cake for other parties. Seems logical enough.

Can you tell us how many host you sampled before coming to your conclusion? I've been on plenty of hosts with Ming/Zlib/Bzip and more enabled

Not really. I've ran into several that didn't have PDFlib installed, which in my opinion is several too many. I went through the nine hells making a PDF generating script because of that, and used a class for generating PDF:s, which was not as classy (har har) as the one mentioned by skunk.

**Eric.Coleman** · Nov 18, 2002, 18:07

Originally posted by copycat
Everyone considering using PHP should read this article:
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/6/php_suspend.html

That has been around for sooo long, and was determined to be a hoak.

**copycat** · Nov 18, 2002, 19:36

Originally posted by Zaire

That has been around for sooo long, and was determined to be a hoak.

No way man!

Next you'll tell me the news on http://www.theonion.com/ is fake.

**Eric.Coleman** · Nov 18, 2002, 19:55

doh :P

Don't I feel like an ***..

**siteguru** · Nov 19, 2002, 01:02

Originally posted by seanf

Did anyone say it was?

No, I was just reminding people of the fact since at this point the thread had spread to 3 pages, and it is useful to periodically remind people from where this thread started.

Originally posted by M. Johansson

I've ran into several that didn't have PDFlib installed, which in my opinion is several too many.

FWIW you can see the features list on my website which is hosted at www.namehog.net - ooh! I have '--with-pdflib=shared'. Does that count?

**HarryF** · Nov 19, 2002, 07:18

Getting back the original subject, it turns out Amazon does use PHP (according to Rasmus)

Obviously, most of the open-source related sites out there use PHP. I know it is also used to some extent at MCI/Worldcom, Honda, Lycos and Amazon. Basically just count when you browse around. One in every five clicks is likely to be a PHP-powered site.

From http://www.computerworld.com/softwar...,67864,00.html - nice article

Also;

Q: Do you have any thoughts as to why someone should choose PHP over Microsoft's Active Service Pages (ASP)?
A: This is a difficult question to answer without getting into philosophical issues. I will try to avoid those and just look at it from a practical perspective:

- Windows 2000 Server: $3,999
- Internet Security and Acceleration Server: $5,999 per CPU
- SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition: $19,999 per CPU
- MSDN Universal Subscription (w/ DevStudio): $2,799 per developer

List prices from Microsoft.com
This can add up quickly. And you probably need to add some Internet connector licenses, maybe an Exchange server license if you are doing e-mail handling and perhaps the content management server, which is a whopping $42,999 per CPU.

...I can build you a similar setup using Linux, Apache+SSL, PHP, PostgreSQL and Squid...

...So perhaps five machines with two CPUs in each. The software alone could cost you over $300,000 for that, compared to $0...

**Jeremy W.** · Nov 19, 2002, 07:57

"What was your 'main' language before switching to .NET?"

Delphi and HTML using Frontpage.

Once again Harry is playing the number of sites card. I thought we'd already determined it was great but is indicative of nothing.

As far as costs, let's note 2 things: First, they're talking about ASP. Second is actually a more thorough breakdown because the writer of that quote is an idiot:

"- Windows 2000 Server: $3,999
- Internet Security and Acceleration Server: $5,999 per CPU
- SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition: $19,999 per CPU
- MSDN Universal Subscription (w/ DevStudio): $2,799 per developer"

The only bits I'll let stand here are Windows 2000 Server.

ISA Server is much more than anything he's noted in the xNix world. In fact, read Network computing and have a look at HIP software costs (30K+ by itself), distributed firewall costs (30K+ by itself) and NAT costs (1K+ by itself). So, ISA is actually quite a good deal, especially since it wasn't developed by MS and the price DROPPED when MS bought it.

SQL Server is great. It's compared to... MySQL? Hardly a fair comparison *L*

The MSDN is rarely bought for more than one developer in an organisation, and I'd love to see something similar to the MSDN for anything.

So, so far we have the MS solution in at, what, 50K?

A similar xNix solution would be something like:

Solaris (plus more powerful hardware) (not sure of the cost)
Oracle 9i DB & App Server: 65K
HIP & Firewall Software: 50K (I'm being generous)
Lack of central documentation and discounts: Unquantifiable

So, before we even start to measure development time in the above corporate environment, we're actually looking @ a much more expensive solution outside of MS.

Of course, time after time MS solutions have proved to be faster to develop in. The argument used to be that they weren't "true" development tools but that is obviously no longer the case. xNix really has nothing free that does app development that I know of, so you'll likely end up going with Java where the IDE is 2500$ (compared to .NET's 600$) and where it does take longer to develop (guesstimates range from 30% longer in the Java community to 400% longer in the MS Fanboy House). I think it's about 40% personally based on our experience from other IDE's and platforms.

This means that in a team of 10, you would save 4 people in the .NET team. Thus, you have saved more than your entire hardware/software cost for your team just by choosing .NET.

Some people may say this is extreme but it's exactly what happened with us except that we poured the savings back into personnel so we have a 5-man team for the cost of a 2-man team. Since all our projects are geared to saving money, we actually will save 250,000$ more than we cost next fiscal year.

So, again, when you quote people, let's make sure their facts are straight

**HarryF** · Nov 19, 2002, 09:19

Dear oh dear J. Don't have much right now to pick all that apart again but most of what you say is based on;

SQL Server is great. It's compared to... MySQL? Hardly a fair comparison *L*

No - notice he said PostGreSQL which is a very solid database.

Also Linux makes a faster and more reliable OS for web sites these days - Solaris is great for back office stuff but when you start hitting the filesystem hard, it slows right down.

For security that's plenty of good open source stuff around for Linux.

So the Open way is still looking nicely free.

The MSDN is rarely bought for more than one developer in an organisation, and I'd love to see something similar to the MSDN for anything.

TSK TSK TSK.

PS: What does Microsofts CMS solution cost these days (no I'm not talking about that IBuySpy thing)... $30k, $50k?

Oh and one other thing;

xNix really has nothing free that does app development that I know of

Try http://www.eclipse.org - it's called Eclipse because IBM (the sponsors of this Open Source project) predict the sun will go down on all competition...

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