Sample Web application (Re: Python vs PHP)

Ian Bicking ianb at colorstudy.com
Wed Jul 9 22:40:56 EDT 2003


On Wed, 2003-07-09 at 21:14, Moshe Zadka wrote:
> On 09 Jul 2003, Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> wrote:
> 
> > I think installation is a major hindrance to Python's
> > adoption as a web programming language -- a combination off difficult
> > installation, and a lack of robustness and generality in installation
> > methods.
> 
> Since PHP is widely adopted as a web programming language, I assume
> you think PHP's installation methods are robusts and general?
> Let me assure you, having done PHP configuration in Apache, it
> is far from it -- in fact, it is buggy and annoying beyond all
> measure. [I was *shocked* to discover, for example, I can't associate
> all .html files in a directory with PHP. I am sure it is a great
> visibility booster for PHP to have pages end with .php, but I didn't
> care much for it.] 

PHP's installation is difficult, but fairly robust.  The result is a
system where pages can be added easily, multiple users can coexist,
server health is generally maintained, and administrator overhead
*after* installation is pretty good.  For a large set of applications,
you don't have to interact with the administrator during installation or
development of your application.  Interacting with system administrators
usually does not make developers happy, so that's a big plus.

PHP certainly sucks in a whole bunch of ways, installation included, but
it gives administrators what they want (simplicity and delegation), and
gives users what they want (an available environment with a relatively
decent learning/usage curve).

  Ian







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