in reply to Another prediction of Perl's demise

You know, anyone can write articles and put them out there...it dosn't mean a thing if it dosn't make sense. Perl programmers could write articles lambasting the narrow scope of PHP, but Perl programmers seem to have more "self-respect" than that; preferring to not stooping to that level. Apparently PHP programmers feel the need for self-assurance that they are using the "right language".

Ask a typical PHP programmer to write something that is not "for the web"? You will get answers like "that can't be done", or "you need a local web server and a browser interface". With Perl all that stuff can be done easily.

So why waste time on a language with such a narrow focus as PHP?

I see more and more, that peer-2-peer connections, with encryption, using sockets and no web server, is where the "real action" is at. Compare PHP and Perl at doing those kind of things, and low-and-behold ... Perl wins hands down, leaving all those PHP programmers wondering why they wasted so much time learning a tool that is only useful on the web.

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
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Re^2: Another prediction of Perl's demise
by apotheon (Deacon) on Nov 26, 2004 at 06:17 UTC

    "Waste time on PHP" because it's not wasted time.

    PHP is a language that has its uses, and its design is such that it can accomplish some (yes, narrow) tasks much more easily than Perl can. I increasingly find, in my own web development work, that a given project is best served by a combination of PHP and Perl. Perl gets used to manage the files for a dynamic website, and PHP gets used to render output to the browser, for the most part. There is some crossover, and even some interaction between the two.

    Neither language is as absurdly useless as something like Whitespace. Each has its uses, and each is better at some things than the other.

    I would recommend learning both quite thoroughly for any web programmer. If, however, you are only going to learn one (or if you don't really do much/any web programming), I definitely recommend Perl over PHP as the more versatile, and ultimately more powerful, tool.

    - apotheon
    CopyWrite Chad Perrin

[reply]
      If, however, you are only going to learn one (or if you don't really do much/any web programming), I definitely recommend Perl over PHP as the more versatile, and ultimately more powerful, tool.

      That is what I meant, without the "ranting".:-)

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
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