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Popularity contest

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 5:20 pm
by RobertStout
Just out of curiosity, which do you all think is more pervasive on the web - php or perl?

I came across the following statement that got me thinking, and being bored, I immediately came here. :D
Perl is arguably the most popular scripting language for the web and consequently, there are hundreds if not thousands of modules that have been written to work with it..

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 6:04 pm
by qads
i think php is way more popular, it kicks ASP's ass like theres no tomrrow, and perl..well..not many i people i know...know it, and i know ALOT of people :P.

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 7:39 pm
by RobertStout
Ive never used ASP, just out of curiousity (besides being a spawn of Microsoft) - how is PHP (which is open source) better than ASP?

...I think I (just answered my question) :roll:

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 8:01 pm
by fractalvibes
PHP is superior to ASP in almost every way concievable. PHP will do some things even ASP.NET cannot natively do, such as FTP and other network socket stuff.

ASP does have an easier, more forgiving syntax.

fv

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 8:09 pm
by d-m
http://www.php.net/usage.php

http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm

I think these graphs can explain better!


But in my opinion, the best for Web is PHP and for programing in general is C/C++

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 8:58 pm
by m3mn0n
Yeah. Whatever they tell you there is a good chance it's just propaganda to grab your interest. RESIST!

If you look around the web, more and more big sites and the new popular ones are being powered by PHP. PHP books are selling like hotcakes at local bookstores in my area too. And if you goto a library anywhere in my area, the books in the PHP/MySQL area are reserved for months. ;) This isn't a very acurate way to tell, but IMHO it's ease of use and EXCELLENT documentation and community support make it as popular as it is and a superior choice over Perl+ASP.

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 10:08 pm
by phice
php owns me

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 12:13 am
by RobertStout
I just went to the book store today and noticed the same thing, there was a whole section deticated to php, there was even several books on mysql.

I stood there for a good while drooling..

Oh.. If I had the money Id buy them all then find a nice quiet cave.

I bought Beginning PHP 4, SQL For Dummies, and MySQL pocket reference. I even saw a book on php 5! Once I devour these books I'll buy some more beginning php books, then I may move on the advanced php material.

Going back to the original purpose of this post, what do you think is more popular.. php or perl?

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:50 am
by pootergeist
stats:

Apache: ~66% from here
Modules:
PHP: ~52%
Perl: ~19% from here

I rest my case - at 52% of 66%, that means PHP is the most used server module language on the planet (even if all of the non Apache servers ran asp, php would still be marginally ahead)

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:35 am
by Sinnix
I think that there could be truth in this Perl being popular stuff. I mean, don't get me wrong... I don't use (nor do I care to!) But if you think about it, Perl was around for a long time before PHP got onto the scene... so I would imagine there would be a lot of Perl programmers and scripts out there. :|

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:48 am
by Nay
I've studied ASP and ASP.NET before and got dragged into PHP half way though. I have to agree it's so much better. I mean, when I get errors with ASP, I don't know what it even means. Like someone said, Microsoft gives a technicly correct but completely useless answer. At least with PHP I know what is wrong at what line.

PHP rocks! *starts dancing around*

-Nay

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:31 pm
by evilmonkey
I believe I said that:

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment.
Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it.

"I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building, because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:40 pm
by nigma
I use perl for backend stuff, but I have never even attempted to use it online after starting with PHP. PHP meets all my needs and can meet many more needs I might have in the future.