[wp-hackers] Drop PHP4 support entirely?

[Knut-Olav Hoven]

On Monday 09 July 2007 06:53:29 Computer Guru wrote:
> I have to disagree.
>
> PHP is a powerful -web scripting language- not a general-purpose language.
> PHP CLI *is* the _same thing_ as the PHP web. Same engine, works in the
> same way, does the same thing, and has the same weaknesses.
>
> Only difference is, one outputs to the command line and the other to a net
> socket.

Yes, but why should that be bad thing?

>
> It doesn't really make a difference if we're talking PHP5 or PHP3 - it
> wasn't made to do this in the first place.

PHP5 is object oriented and has a larger and easier-to-maintain libraries than 
PHP3. Evolution it's called, I believe.

>
> It's not the language so much as it is the implementation. For instance,
> with PHP-Phalanger (CLR/.NET version of PHP), it's no longer PHP - you code
> in PHP and it gets changed into the same machine code it would be if it
> were written C++. But when you're running php-cgi or isapi or mod_php, it
> was never intended to do anything but web scripting and I doubt even the
> guys at php.net would recommend for such a job.

No difference using PHP-Phalanger or mod_php. It's the same code and the same 
library. Configuration files (php.ini) might be different, but that's it.

>
>
> PHP may be more powerful than we think *as a web scripting language* but
> not as a desktop application....
>
> Sure, on Linux you have the (PHP|Python|Perl)-Gtk libraries which let you
> (very badly) tie a PHP script to a non-HTML GUI, but the best they can do
> is call up CLI commands and attempt to parse their output. So while you can
> have the PHP script call up `shutdown -r now` you're going to be SEVERELY
> limited by the lack of communication with other applications and the
> Linux/Windows API for whatever it is you're doing.

Why bring up desktop applications at all? It could be a server (daemon) 
application (using SOAP, CORBA or something) that integrates with all those 
other applications to control the various parts of the server.

Gtk-bindings (and other bindings) are just wrappers around C/C++ functions.

>
> -CG
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wp-hackers-bounces at lists.automattic.com [mailto:wp-hackers-
> > bounces at lists.automattic.com] On Behalf Of Pixline
> > Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 12:03 AM
> > To: wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
> > Subject: Re: [wp-hackers] Drop PHP4 support entirely?
> >
> > Il giorno 08/lug/07, alle ore 18:26, Aaron Brazell ha scritto:
> > > If you can figure out how to use PHP from the web to manipulate all
> > > the aspects of system level webhosting without introducing security
> > > problems, I'd love to talk to you. :)
> > > (via Blackberry)
> > > Aaron Brazell
> >
> > php web frontend + php cli backend, perhaps?
> > I'm not sure it would manage *anything* but it worth a try.
> >
> > Next week i'm looking to code something like a proof of concept: a
> > web interface to manage a streaming server.
> > We just want something like on/off button for an icecast server, but
> > I think php is really more powerful than we actually consider it.
> >
> > of course, we're talking about php 5.2+ :-)
> >
> > aloha
> >
> > Paolo
> > ------------------------------------
> > Pixline Coding Collective
> > http://pixline.net
> >
> >
> >
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> > wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
> > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers
>
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-- 
Knut-Olav Hoven
Systemutvikler               mob: +47 986 71 700
Linpro AS                    http://www.linpro.no/