Humorous blog post - relates to PHP compilers

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greyhoundcode
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Humorous blog post - relates to PHP compilers

Post by greyhoundcode »

I've had something of an interest in PHP compilers, but other work caused me to stop following the scene for a while. In any case, I had a chance to catch up and came across this fantastic post by Paul Biggar of phc fame. The post in question can be found here and largely concerns the now famous Hiphop compiler from Facebook..

Personal highlights:

Talking about the rationale against PHP compilers:
I’ve heard the argument "you don’t need a compiler, since PHP is rarely the bottleneck" for many years. I think its complete bollox. But I wrote a compiler for PHP, so I would say that.
The not uncommon perception of PHP as being "fast":
You should consider also that PHP is considered relatively fast. Its not — the interpreter is dog-slow


Why we choose PHP over lower level languages:
They like PHP, are productive in it, and any time spent arsing around in C is wasted when there’s a website falling apart and a long list of features due yesterday.
Refers to a comment left on the blog post in question, which the author then edited:
Actually, this guy said the opposite, but in such a dickish way that I decided to childishly write over it. If "a fellow student" wants to make his point without acting like a prick, I'm happy to listen to criticism.
IMO, well worth a read! :wink:
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