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Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

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Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#31

Post by xlnt »

jrockway wrote: post #29
newt0311 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And perl has nothing approaching Python's readability. Perl may be easier to start with now but in 6 months, it will become a major headache. Read http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882 . Using Python would be an excellent choice imo.

Python being readable is FUD. I've seen tons of horrible Python. Of course, I've also seen tons of horrible Perl (and PHP, and even Lisp). Basically, in the hands of incompetent programmers, everything is unreadable. If you are disciplined, you can write easily-readable Perl. I (and my coworkers) do it every day. Oh, one other thing... the linked article is from 2000. In the last 8 years, the Perl community has figur…

one can write readable anything, but some languages encourage it more, both in the language features and syntax, and also in the community, tutorials, etc

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#33

Post by t0pj »

binglo wrote: post #26
t0pj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually know Perl and Java pretty darn well. I wish to constantly expand my understanding of computing in general, and learning a new language is a great way to go. I hope to not only learn a new syntax or two but also learn to think in different ways. This works with human languages, too. Yosh!

Ah. Ok, then that makes things easier. For your case, don't use Python, nor PHP. Both are pretty much just like Perl and Java with only minor syntax changes. If you want to expand your understanding of computing in general, while also learning a new language, and while doing a webapp, if I were you I'd learn Common Lisp and try out Hunchentoot. There's even some screencasts for that setup floating around. Going with…

Thanks for the advice.

I've also been learning Lisp (sbcl) over the last six months and have tried out Hunchentoot with elephant, cl-who, and parenscript.

I'd say one of the things keeping me from going with Lisp is the potential pool of developers to pick from when expanding the operation. I think I would have a better chance at enlisting others with PHP or Python than with Common Lisp. Is this line of thinking wrong?

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#34

Post by t0pj »

thorax wrote: post #28

I loooove Python. But if asked to "bet the farm" on a web app, I'd go with PHP because it's been successfully demonstrated again in again in every form of web app you can imagine. In a year, I'd recommend Python, but I still find Django and the other web frameworks a bit too immature and clunky to do things that PHP has been hacking with for years and years. As much as I hate to say it, for the Python community the w…

Code Igniter framework for PHP.

Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#35

Post by sachinag »

I spent a lot of time bellyaching about this when starting my company - looking at PHP, Perl (preferred by the devs), and Python (preferred by the advisers I trust).

In the end, we went PHP, and it was hugely lucky - we were able to hire a couple of devs on very short notice because we were in PHP, even though we use a less popular framework called Qcodo. After they were hired, I asked them what they thought, and there was no way they were going to learn a new language to join us, but they were ok learning a new framework.

My feeling is that PHP has the largest base of developers out there, and that means that you've got the biggest base of potential co-workers. If you yourself are a great hacker, you can prop up whoever else you're working with. If you're building an app/business to scale, you have to have other hackers join you.

Hell, Apple has a hard time finding Objective C hackers, and they're Apple.

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#36

Post by menloparkbum »

I've used all three of the languages you mention for relatively large web applications. People will say PHP sucks because it is ugly and retarded and only has one namespace. People will say Python sucks because of the whitespace issue and mod_python doesn't work on a $5/m shared hosting plan. Perl sucks of course because "the syntax is crazy!" But, huge sites are built in PHP (Facebook, Hype Machine, Flickr, half of Yahoo!), Python (much of Google) and Perl (craig's list). In my experience they are all about equivalent except for aesthetic reasons.

The headaches in a web app are usually at the user interface level (DOM/CSS/Javascript) and at the systems level (there's a bug in fast cgi! MySQL imploded!) and language choice gluing it all together is mostly a matter of taste. People with taste overestimate its importance. You can get pretty far in the internet biz with no taste (MySpace... originally done in COLD FUSION).

That said, the most tasteful option out of your choices is Python.

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#37

Post by iamdave »

t0pj wrote: post #12
iamdave wrote: post #5

>calendar/scheduling/notifications with some social networking Why? More and more web apps are coming out with social networking tied in, and very few of them succeed BECAUSE they have social networking tied in. Socializing a site is a bit more than giving people profile pages and enabling them the ability to "friend" people, at least that's how I look at it. So my question to you is this: how are you planning to mak…

Wow. Lots of questions. Thanks! On a plan to make the social aspect work, is there a finite list of ways to choose from? I don't believe there's really only one way. It definitely seems that "social networking" could have a negative effect on my plan yet I hope to do things a little differently. There will be some socializing benefits.

When I say "how" I don't mean are you going to use OpenSocial or anything like that. I mean when you implement it, how are you going to make it useful?

Re: Ask HN: Bet the farm. Python or PHP?

#38

Post by t0pj »

bayareaguy wrote: post #22

Why two web servers (thttpd and apache) instead of just one, say lighttpd or nginx?

If I go with PHP, Apache will be running non-threaded.

To run Apache/PHP as lean as possible, I'll take advantage of thttpd's polling to quickly serve up any static content I have to as many simultaneous connections as possible.

I haven't taken a really deep look at lighttpd nor nginx.

I see what you mean though, why would I use two distinctly different http servers where one would simply do?

Could you give me some hints as to what I'm missing out on if I stay with Apache and thttpd or what I'd gain going to either nginx or lighttpd?

Thanks!

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