PHP vs. Python/comp.lang.php?

[phil hunt]

On Fri, 23 Nov 2001 15:05:19 GMT, Suchandra Thapa <ssthapa at classes.cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Max M <maxm at normik.dk> wrote:
>>I think you will find that the general concensus is that Python is a
>>"complete" language. Which PHP is not. Python can be used for both web
>>scripting and, shell scripting, application development, small tools and gui
>>apps. And is very good at all of them. Wheras PHP is only useable for
>>scripting web pages.
>
>	PHP has a command line interpeter so it can be used for scripting
>and the like.  I believe there is even a gtk library so it's conceivable to
>create a gui app in php.  However using php for something other than web
>scripting is very rare.

That's because PHP *as a language* isn't that good. Python is a much
better GUI scripting language.

PHP is nice for web pages, but that's all it's nice for.

>	However, PHP has some fairly large flaws in comparision to python.
>For example, using a variable that has never been declared or initialized will
>silently be treated as using an empty string

It wouldn't bother me if Python did this.

> (e.g. if you make a typo while
>entering a variable's name, you won't get an error).  PHP also has some issues
>with case sensitvity.  Variable names are case sensitive while function names 
>are not.  In addition, function calls are handled poorly.  If you call a 
>function with 3 parameters when it was declared with less than 3 parameters,
>php will silently ignore the extra parameter.

PHP is also ugly. As an example, compare: 

PHP:     $object->$member
Python:  object.member  

-- 
*** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ***