Re: [Openvds-devel] Control Panel for OpenVDS-2

[Joe Cooper]

Eje Gustafsson wrote:

> However I decided if I was going to maybe start do something here I
> better learn php so I picked up a book about it the other day. And off
> I go.. -lol-
> I have one wish that is that webmin used php because php is SOOO much
> faster then perl. (ever seen the difference between vbb and ubb ? or
> anything else that is written in php respectivly perl).

Poorly written Perl vs. tuned PHP is hardly any use in deciding 
execution efficiency.  Perl is not a slow scripting language and under 
many circumstances is faster than PHP (and PHP is faster than perl under 
many different circumstances--they are both scripting languages with 
niches to fill and people who love them).

More important for OpenVDS, anyway, is not execution efficiency at all 
but programmer efficiency.  If speed of execution really mattered it 
would have to be written in C/C++...but speed doesn't matter. 
Administrative interfaces will have fewer than 15 client connections at 
any given moment, even on a virtual server box with hundreds of virts. 
It could be written in bash and it would be fast enough...the question 
is, what language is more productive.  I would argue that a project as 
large as Webmin wouldn't be comfortable in PHP, but that's just picking 
nits...Both languages /could/ do the job--but Perl /has/ done the job. 
I think something about a bird in the hand being better than two in the 
bush applies here.

Besides, PHP is kind of ugly...or maybe I've only seen badly written 
PHP.  I reckon it must be possible to write nice PHP or it wouldn't be 
so common--or maybe that it's so easy to write PHP (if badly) is the 
reason it is so common.  ;-)
--
Joe Cooper <address@hidden>
http://www.swelltech.com
Web Caching Appliances and Support