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Freitag, 24. September 2004

Language Wars

Language Wars:

I'm a little bothered by all the sniping between the various scripting language camps: Lisp bashes Python, Perl bashes PHP, everyone bashes Java.

But anyone can walk up, hand $10 to a hosting company, and start serving PHP + MySQL applications. If you want to run Perl, Python, Ruby or anything else, you need to use CGI or a dedicated and more expensive server.

Not to knock those other languages (and I'd like to do some projects in Ruby or Python,) but until Mod_(Perl|Python|Ruby) becomes as common as PHP in hosting packages, people are going to build their applications using PHP.

And this where the vicious circle has already started. PHP is in a state like windows, it's out there and common. And because of that if it does not screw up totally it will stay and survive, while other, far better solutions, have a hard time competing. Sad computing world indeed :-(.

[Via More Like This WebLog.]

10:00 - Freitag, 24. September 2004
Comments

Hmm, all my webhosts offered cgi execution when they offered php/mysql as well, so that's not a valid point against Perl. But it's true, Ruby and Python are just not at all common. I seriously prefer Perl, you can use TCL/TK and build an alternative interface rather easy whereas PHP is a damn good tool for any thing http-related (well, perl excels at this too, but it just isn't as "hip and fresh").

Posted by: Stephan at 24.09.04 11:18