PHP vs VB

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BDKR
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PHP vs VB

Post by BDKR »

Hey,

This isn't really a "What's better?" thing. Just some commentary. With the thankfully very very small company I work for, most of what we are based on was originally written in VB. Our transaction processing is a VB app that's doing a great Job AFAIK. However, the developer also wrote all the web based administration in VB.

Now all the backend stuff is mine, from the routers down to every cable in the cluster. I've also written some code to automate certain housekeeping and financial chores, using PHP (of course) and our friend CRON.

Anyways, as of late, there has been a need for a more fine grained type of real time report than we have had available. Now the main developer had too much going on with the transaction server to write a new web based report, so I stepped up and brought php along with me.

Anyways, after the code was written adn the report started being used, the main developer came back to me and said in effect that he was stunned by the performance of PHP and is interested in me rewriting another of the reports in PHP to act as a comparison against his VB based stuff. He was trying his best to figure out what differences there are in PHP and VB that could account for the performance difference.

To be honest, I figured that VB, being compiled, would be faster.

Anyways, I've got some ideas, but I don't normally code for a Windows platform (our web servers are W2K based running Xitami).

So, if any of you have any ideas or comments, I'd like to hear them.

Cheers,
BDKR
hedge
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Post by hedge »

well actually VB is not compiled, it is also interpreted. It also loads more at startup to support user interfaces etc.

If he is then using odbc via vb to get to the database then that also slows it down.

Doesn't strike me as all that surprizing.
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Post by BDKR »

well actually VB is not compiled, it is also interpreted. It also loads more at startup to support user interfaces etc.
So when our VB developer (and I've done it too) clicks on File, then "Make yourprog.exe", it's not compiling it? Then what is it doing? Or is it a thing like Java where it's creating VB byte code.

You need to specify! Besides, as far as I'm concerned, anything you can't view in a editor is compiled to some extent or another.

Cheers,
BDKR
[/quote]
hedge
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Post by hedge »

BDKR wrote:
well actually VB is not compiled, it is also interpreted. It also loads more at startup to support user interfaces etc.
So when our VB developer (and I've done it too) clicks on File, then "Make yourprog.exe", it's not compiling it? Then what is it doing? Or is it a thing like Java where it's creating VB byte code.

You need to specify! Besides, as far as I'm concerned, anything you can't view in a editor is compiled to some extent or another.

Cheers,
BDKR
[/quote]

compiling creates pcode. Your analogy to java is close. Any VB exe needs the vbrun*.dll in order to run.
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Post by BDKR »

Great! Thanks for the info. You can tell what languages I really don't pay much attention too.

Cheers,
BDKR
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