[CLUE-Tech] PHP question for Grant

[Jeremiah Stanley]

> I saw on a recent post that you're using PHP and you like it.  What
> benefits do you see from using it?  The reason?  An organization wants
> to put together a web site and we're deciding on some technologies, and
> I'm for Open Source, of course, and I'm looking for ammo to promote
> Linux as a good solution as well a promote Open Source to new people. 
> Any feedback you can give would be helpful.

I hope everyone is welcome to post to this, I'm bored and have a few
answers to the questions.

- PHP is cross platform. More so than just running on NT vs. Linux there
is also support for Solaris and all the other BSD's. If it can run Apache,
it can most likely run PHP. ASP only runs on M$ and ColdFusion support is
just in it's infancy in Linux.

- PHP supports more database solutions. This allows you flexibility in
choosing a new database and/or integrating the antiquated database that
you are currently using. I don't know much about ASP but ColdFusion has
trouble with MySQL which is being touted as internet developments next
"killer app".

- PHP has a bazillion and one free resources. People, in the open source
spirit, give away their code for others to use. This is an untellable
resource, it saves days if not weeks of development time.

- PHP has speed on it's side. I'm not going to say that it is faster than
ASP or ColdFusion but it is constantly getting faster. From 3.15 to 4.1
there was an almost 100% speed increase in the base interpretter. If it
still isn't fast enough then you can write you own modules in C that can
be compile into the PHP modules for Apache.

- PHP is freakin' easy to learn. If you can do anything in Perl, it looks
almost the same in PHP. It would take any competent computer user about a
week to learn it and a "professional programmer" can pick up most of the
syntax in a few hours.

- PHP is free. Take the money you save on not buying M$ and Allaire
licenses and buy fast internet drops and faster servers w/more RAM. 

These are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head, there
will be more from everyone else I'm sure.

JStanley
-- 
I am deeply CONCERNED and I want something GOOD for BREAKFAST!