PHP: Where is the road?

PHP4: Behind the Miracle

In 1995, Rasmus in PHP to write his personal homepage; today, PHP has become a global popular scripting language, more and more sites choose to use PHP, even Yahoo has given up its own script and switch to PHP to support its web site. It can be said that PHP is a miracle. I always thought that there was a reason behind any miracle. Now, let's look at the success of PHP through this miracle.

1 simple and easy to use

PHP's entry threshold is low, and it has minimal user requirements. People who have studied C have little time to use PHP. Their syntax is so similar that I often wonder if I can change it to PHP by adding a $ in front of the C-language variable. This allows a large number of C programmers to select PHP in the Web script. In addition, PHP's Library of functions is much more studious than ASP's component systems and Java's vast class libraries. In the programming style, PHP is free, you can use n style to write your script program. These features make PHP the preferred language for beginners. Seizing the beginner's market is a very important strategy. As anyone can remember their first love, people tend to have deep feelings about the language they first learn. Even if you grow up later, switch to other languages, or you will always remember the first language of learning. At this point, PHP is doing a good job.

2 trim.

The PHP development team is a group of people who know the most about the web, and they know exactly what the user wants. PHP is to do a good web scripting language, and it is only to do a web scripting language. The set of functions provided by PHP is quite powerful in the network and focuses on network applications. Like PHP in the absence of component file upload, Super database support and other features have shown this feature. By the way, PHP even supports Access databases. Focus enables PHP to perform extremely well on the network. It takes a loss to get something.

3 Strong Support

PHP has a strong opensource community support, there are tens of thousands of open source code on the network. You can integrate several existing programs to implement your application, or you can analyze master code to improve it. PHP also has a number of extensibility projects to enhance the functionality of PHP in one area. Pear, which focuses on programming normalization and Code reuse, provides smarty for compiling template technology, and even the gtk of developing desktop programs.

After analyzing these reasons, we can see that PHP's success has benefited from the strategic vision of the PHP development team. PHP provides a minimal working set that allows users to perform their needs efficiently in the simplest possible way. That's what beginners need. Then it offers various solutions through easy scaling, so you just have to learn what you need to use in that area. When you are involved in more and more areas, your level will also improve, when you are familiar with most areas, looking back, you will find unknowingly to the mountainside. PHP also provides us with a learning attitude.


ASP.NET+J2EE: Wind and rain to come

The wave of innovation in the Web scripting World was first launched by Microsoft's asp.net. In ASP.net, there is a very attractive thing--event-driven mechanism. This is a common concept in desktop programming, while event-driven programming means that server-side scripts (such as PHP, JSP, ASP) and client script (such as JavaScript and VBScript) are encapsulated to work together. As a result, programming becomes extraordinarily convenient. Event-driven in the. NET environment also has the advantage that you may not even have any server-side script and client script, because in asp.net, it is possible to use a language such as C # directly--even without adding $. This paved the way for traditional programmers in the MS Camp to turn to web development, while also making PHP a big hit in the beginner's market. Predictably, the future of traditional programmers turning to PHP will be greatly reduced. But the biggest problem with asp.net is that it can only run on Windows, and now the mainland is making a big effort to develop Linux. This makes PHP's living space seem a bit wider, but--let's look at Java.

Java is also a miracle, 1995 released the first version, now formed three versions, covering the embedded system (J2ME) Desktop Program (J2SE) and server (Java EE) The three major areas of application. More importantly, Java has been recognized by most programmers, and now the world's Most outstanding computer books are mostly in C + + or Java as a descriptive language. Java is almost as much a believer as C. So let's not be paranoid that Java-camp programmers will turn to PHP. At the same time, PHP has lost a lot of advantages in the face of open source and Cross-platform java. Java EE in the JSP in the beginners market for PHP caused considerable pressure.

In the beginner's market that once made PHP successful, ease of use and open source support, and so on are challenged, and with the continuous improvement of machine performance, everyone's requirements for efficiency is gradually reduced, it can be said that PHP to ASP.net and Java-ee in the slit to survive and grow, is a very difficult thing.

and PHP itself has a lot of problems. Too many users like low-level. A large number of developers are in the introductory stage, and do not know how to improve themselves, resulting in a large number of open source code is not standardized and inefficient, but also the next batch of beginners from these bad code to learn, so recursive. On the other hand, higher-order users have to turn to other languages to develop large applications because of the incomplete object-oriented features of PHP.


PHP5: Thick Coffee flavor

The PHP development team released PHP5 's BETA1 in the middle of this year, and we can see the response from PHP. First, the development of PHP4 is still non-stop, and we can be sure that the development of PHP4 will continue for a long time. The aim is to consolidate the new features of the PHP5 in the future PHP4 version, and to achieve a smooth transition PHP4 to PHP5.

And look at the changes in PHP5. In PHP5, we see too much Java shadow. OO system is almost copy Java, which ensures that the PHP users do not lose, so that they can easily use the latest technology system to structure their own applications. On the other hand, it is also convenient for Java programmers to use PHP, although this may be less likely. After perfecting the OO system, PHP has the ability to truly enter the enterprise-class market. Then PHP5 also added a lot of their own things, like __get, to make the system more user-friendly. I wonder if this cup of cappuccino will be as popular as Java.

From the PHP5 change, we see the direction of PHP in the future. First, and JSP competition, in some respects to replace JSP, become bonded JavaBeans and servlet glue. This requires a closer relationship between PHP and Java. The Zend team is participating in the JSR specification designation. This specification will allow you to directly new a Java object in PHP and invoke its method. This will also enable PHP to enter the enterprise-level market faster. In addition, PHP will have a much better outlook if the scripts written by PHP can be compiled directly into bytecode to run on the JVM. Another direction is to do integration between Java and. NET, and consolidate existing resources in some large applications. In PHP4 we can already invoke COM components and Java objects, and we believe that PHP5 will provide more support in the future.

In any case, whether it is with Java EE and. NET competition or integration, PHP to go, will be a road full of thorns. But now that PHP has gone all the way to today, what reason do we not believe it can go further?

Best Wishes, PHP.