Python v PHP: fair comparison?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1163681949.338244.323390 at k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Luis M. González <luismgz at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 			.
>> 			.
>> 			.
>> Perhaps it's timely to clarify the "newer" above:  Guido
>> made Python public in '89-90, and Rasmus showed PHP to
>> others in '94-95.
>
>OK. But since when has python been considered a viable alternative for
>web development?
>As a generalp purpose language, it's older.
>But as a web development language, it's olnly when people started to
>look for the "rails killer" and many python alternatives started to
>come up (although Django has been in development for a long time before
>all this hype).
>I remember well, just a few months ago, there were many alternatives
>(remember "subway"?).
>

I appreciate your clarification.  I can report back that we
certainly move in different circles; I, for example, knew of
people with multi-million-dollar budgets deciding on Python-
based Web technology for *serious* applications in '96.  Ruby
1.0, perhaps you'll recall, was a Christmas gift for 1996.
For this and allied reasons, it didn't occur to me to regard
Ruby as the senior "Web development language" among the two.