Why PHP is so much more popular for web-development

[Steve Holden]

walterbyrd wrote:
> "Once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your
> desiny. Consume you, it will."
> - Yoda
> 
> I'm fairly new to web-development, and I'm trying out different
> technologies. Some people wonder why PHP is so popular, when the
> language is flawed in so many ways. To me, it's obvious: it's because
> it's much easier to get started with PHP, and once somebody gets
> started with a particular language, that person is likely to stay with
> that language.
> 
> Before you can even get started with Python web-development, you have
> to understand this entire alphabit soup of: CGI, FASTCGI, MOD_PYTHON,
> FLUP, WSGI, PASTE, etc. For me, configuring fastcgi has been the most
> difficult part of getting django to work. PHP developers don't have to
> bother with anything like that. With PHP, you just throw some code in
> the middle of your html file.
> 
> Also, PHP, and PHP frameworks, are supported everywhere. If you going
> to use a PHP MVC framework, like codeignitor, you would have a hard
> time finding a hoster that didn't support it - all you need is php4
> and mysql. Dollar-hosting, for $10 a year, should work just fine with
> codeignitor. With codeignitor, just copy your files to whatever host,
> and that's it, you're done.
> 
> By contrast, the most popular Python frameworks have sky-high system
> requirements. Take a look at the requirements and/or recomendations
> for popular Python frameworks like Django, TurboGears, or CherryPy:
> Apache 2.0, mod_python (latest version), fastcgi (at least), command
> line access, PostgreSQL. And a lot of low-cost hosters don't support
> Python at all.
> 
> Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that PHP is better than Python for
> web-development. But, I sometimes think that Python could learn a few
> things from PHP.
> 
> All JMHO, of course.
> 
Indeed. The reason that PHP is so popular with so many people is that 
the core language meets most of the simpler requirements for web sites.

Most people putting together a site are perfectly happy with something 
along the lines of PHPNuke.

When someone starts to push the limits of PHP they either continue to 
push until they get where they want to be (producing an ugly or 
ill-maintained bunch of code along the way) or they choose a more 
appropriate tool.

The latter behavior is typical of programmers. The former is typical of 
typical users. There are many people producing web sites who I wouldn't 
let within yards of any of my code. but it's some kind of tribute to PHP 
that it manages to satisfy so many of them. This doesn't mean that 
grafting PHP features into Python mindlessly will improve the language.

The Python approach is a scalpel, which can easily cut your fingers off. 
The PHP approach is a shovel, which will do for many everyday tasks.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd           http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb      http://del.icio.us/steve.holden
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