Re: php professional

[Mark Walker <furface@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think a lot of the reasons people use LAMP is that inexpensive ISPs 
use LAMP.  The reasons ISPs use LAMP as opposed to other, in my opinion 
more powerful tools has to do with the complexities of hosting large 
numbers of user applications on single machines. 

For instance, I don't know anybody who's ever coded in both PHP and 
Java/Servlet/jsp who would choose PHP.  You'd have to be an idiot to 
choose PHP over Java/jsp.  However, PHP is designed to very quickly 
induce an application state, run the application, and then archive the 
application state out of processor memory.  Servlets are not designed to 
do that.  They are designed to run on a Java Virtual Machine that 
remains resident indefinitely.  As an ISP you have the choice to let all 
your users share the same application state with Java, very insecure, or 
run multiple jvms, very memory intensive.  PHP works much better for you 
because apps induce their state, do what they need to do for each 
request, and then disappear.

Similar issues with Mysql.  It's faster, yet less powerful for 
transaction processing and data integrity than Postgresql.  Well, most 
people who own their own servers are going be more worried about data 
integrity and transaction processing than pure speed.  An ISP, however, 
wants speed less processor usage.  The other thing is that Mysql has a 
faster connection/disconnection cycle.  You can use connection pooling 
with Postgresql which is very fast, but again, more memory and 
application cycle problems.

Given the choice, I think Postgresql is easier to work with, more 
robust, and easier to maintain than Mysql.  However, if you want a $10 a 
month shared hosting account, you're going to almost definitely be 
forced to use Mysql.  Issues of speed?  I don't know, but I haven't 
reached any speed bottlenecks with Postgresql.  Internet connection 
speeds and other application speed issues are usually the bottlenecks.  
It may just be what I do, but I'm definitely more worried about the 
integrety/security of my data than I am about speed.