Professional PHP

2 Responses to “Classpath Considered Harmful”

1. Harry Fuecks says:

   4/27/2004 at 2:42 am

   Comparing PHP with Python is an interesting experience; there is alot of common ground, although Python aims to be a general purpose language while PHP targets web applications. The other division on typing is strong vs. weak and I think it’s fair to say Python is strongly typed while PHP is weakly typed e.g.;

   Python;
   
$myInt = 4;
print "The number is "+myInt; # Illegal interpolation
print "The number is "+str(myInt); # Cast to string


   PHP;

   
myInt = 4;
print "The number is ".$myInt;


   That works in PHP’s favor when it comes to generating HTML while, at the same time, more effort is needed if you want to validate a submitted variable, to check it’s an integer.

   Python generally feels “better rounded”; there are many things I’d love to see in PHP, import in particular plus things like distutils and the notion that everything is an object.

   At the same time think PHP’s class syntax is preferable, hiding you from the fact that the interpreter really regards objects as glorified hashes while Python requires you specify the self reference inside a class.

   Also Python hasn’t got databases nailed down yet, at least when it comes to using a DB to “drive” a website. John Lim is working on porting ADOdb to Python: http://php.weblogs.com/adodb_python
2. Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp says:

   5/2/2004 at 4:24 am

   Static vs. dynamic typing
   Irgendwann Ende der 80er fiel mir ein Zortech C++ Compiler in die Hand. Den mochte ich, weil er anders als das cfront auf dem AIX ein nativer Compiler war. Ich habe also das VP/ix in meinem SCO Xenix hochgefahren, ein MS-DOS rein installiert und ein wenig