in reply to Not Inciting a Holy War, but...

After developing a large amount of PHP pages I've come to the conclusion that PHP's best advantadges aren't. It mingles with the html code, and in the beginning it's cute, when all your HTML is simple.

But when I wanted to do some serious design I found programs such as frontpage treat php tags as junk, and I ended up having 100% code php files and the whole page layout in a separate, editable file in which I perform variable interpolation. It seems kind of silly to use an html-embeddable language without embedding it.

I am now developing a meta search, in which several sites' search outputs are parsed. It uses threads, tons of regexps, tons of hashes, and makes http requests. That's four things PHP can't do.

All in all, PERL (and mod_perl) feels like a pro language, and PHP feels amateur. When your PHP script dies, it spits lots of errors to the browser. Shameful. mod_perl returns a 500 error and logs the messages.

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RE: Re: Not Inciting a Holy War
by toadi (Chaplain) on Jun 19, 2000 at 12:43 UTC
    But when I wanted to do some serious design I found programs such as frontpage treat php tags as junk

    Wel to answer this, don't use FrontPage it's a ugly program...
    Better program everything yourself. Don't use this argument to promote perl over php. First program in what you feel comfortable with and start comparing languages when you kind of master one language reasonable good!

    My opinions may have changed,
    but not the fact that I am right

[reply]
      If you are working with non-programmers who may be called upon to do some design work then Frontpage is a great program. If your server supports the Frontpage extensions then Frontpage is a great program. Don't knock it just because its Microsoft.
[reply]
        Well, let the designers design the website in photoshop/gimp. In nice 800X600 format(screen shot browser in 800 X 600 res put it in psd and design in the browser-window).
        I'll look at the design(curse at the designer because it's difficult to implement in html) and cut it in nice pieces at program the html.
        That's why I'm a programmer and that's why you need programmer and a designer to make a good website. Or your creative with grapics or your a whizz with programming code.But you can't be the best in both!!!!

        My opinions may have changed,
        but not the fact that I am right

[reply]
        I would never snub FrontPage because it's Microsoft...I snub it because it is terribly insecure
        in the way that it ties into the server with it's extensions. Every book on server security I have
        read says that you should strip out the extensions and mappings from your server and find a new way
        to code your HTML.
[reply]
        No, I really don't want to comment on this, but: Frontpage is a piece of crap. If you really have to do something out of vi, there are better products.
[reply]

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