in reply to Re: Is perl scalable?
in thread Is perl scalable?

Perl is not being used for large projects as much as PHP. Why? Because of a number of good reasons that many Perl advocates are ignoring:
  1. mod_php is easier to install than mod_perl.
  2. PHP is easier to learn than Perl.
  3. PHP is fast.
  4. PHP is powerful. You can now use PHP at the command-line. You can even use PHP for shell scripting or to build GUIs.
  5. There are not as many ways of doing things in PHP as there are in Perl. This is a positive thing for PHP if you have large projects with a large team of programmers working on code for a long time.
  6. If you need help with PHP, you go to one source: www.php.net. If you need help with Perl, you have many different websites offering different things (like documentation, modules, articles, etc).
  7. PHP is open source, but better marketed than Perl.
  8. PHP is buzzword compliant.
I have belonged to the Perl community for some time and I don't know if anyone else is noticing this, but the same websites are always referenced when discussing large projects. These sites are etoys, Amazon, CNNSI, Slashdot, Wired, TicketMaster, and few others. How long and impressive do you think the list of sites using Java and PHP are?

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Re: Re: Re: Is perl scalable?
by Anonymous Monk on Dec 07, 2002 at 19:00 UTC
    1. mod_php is easier to install than mod_perl.
      Well, I'll give you that one..

    2. PHP is easier to learn than Perl.
      Sure, you trade power and expresiveness for simplicity. Which is why so many small projects use php and very few large projects do so.

    3. PHP is fast.
      Mod_perl is fast, c is faster then both. ASM is probably faster then c.

    4. PHP is powerful. You can now use PHP at the command-line. You can even use PHP for shell scripting or to build GUIs.
      Wow. I mean, wow man, so now php is atleast barely equivalent with every other language? Java is cmd line. Perl is cmd line. Python is cmd line. Same for guis.

    5. There are not as many ways of doing things in PHP as there are in Perl. This is a positive thing for PHP if you have large projects with a large team of programmers working on code for a long time.
      See earlier arguements about making a single programmer more powerful vs a team.

    6. If you need help with PHP, you go to one source: www.php.net. If you need help with Perl, you have many different websites offering different things (like documentation, modules, articles, etc).
      If you need documention for perl, you go to perldoc.com, or man. If you need to ask a person, you go to perlmonks.com/org

    7. PHP is open source, but better marketed than Perl.
      Thats quite possibly true. Perl needs a better PR campaign.

    8. PHP is buzzword compliant.
      Compared to what..?
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