Phoenix Network Forums

nickdev wrote:Actually CGI is part of perl.

Any code can be used a CGI so lets not forget python(google), ruby, etc..

http://www.selectorweb.com/python.html

http://www.coolnamehere.com/geekery/ruby/web/cgi.html

CGI is Common Gateway Interface not PERL Practical Extraction and Report Language...

Ive found that strong code can be written in any of these languages. Good Object/O code can now be written in PHP which is why I like it. Take a look at the portabiilty of PEAR objects for PHP and you'll see how well good coders have accepted it..

http://pear.php.net/

I guess now adays most of these blogs and CMS sites are written in php, too. (IE php-nuke, nucleus, etc.. too many..)

nickdev wrote:Actually CGI is part of perl.

Non-sense. Perl can be used via CGI. They are not much related to each other.

I like doing things in C++ and TCL. Even web-based stuff. =)

I rather see Python as a replacement for Perl at the moment.
Python is still young and has its flaws, but its quite flexible and is easy.
Even persons with almost no knowledge of python are able to write up simpel programs in python. Where Perl still keeps quite hard to learn.

PHP at the other side is flexible for the prupose it was designed (web applications). But php gtk is a prove of the fact that it can run 'decend' programs.

So i rather see Python as a rival to Perl.

bart416 wrote:PHP at the other side is flexible for the prupose it was designed (web applications). But php gtk is a prove of the fact that it can run 'decend' programs.

Check out the php compiler

The Blender
http://www.priadoblender.com/index.php?layout=main&cslot_1=2

goose wrote:

bart416 wrote:PHP at the other side is flexible for the prupose it was designed (web applications). But php gtk is a prove of the fact that it can run 'decend' programs.

Check out the php compiler

The Blender
http://www.priadoblender.com/index.php?layout=main&cslot_1=2

First time i hear about that, thanks for telling me.

I dind't know I could create GUIs with PHP witch only proves my point:
PHP is growing fast. Now is completly OO and and you are able to compile .EXEs and create nice looking GUIs while in PERL you can't (i think. Not realy a PERL fan)

psyx0th wrote: I dind't know I could create GUIs with PHP witch only proves my point:
PHP is growing fast. Now is completly OO and and you are able to compile .EXEs and create nice looking GUIs while in PERL you can't (i think. Not realy a PERL fan)

I personaly don't realy like OO, thats why some people call my scripts a mess.

Hype and Holy war, my kind of topic.

I learned to stay out of flamewars the hard way, but here are my 2 cents as this seems pretty friendly.
I do not care what your poison is, however I think perhaps you should take performance into consideration. Most webservers that I have the pleasure of comming in touch with run PHP as a module and perl as CGI. This is due to the large number of SOLID premade perl CGI scripts (the others are catching up) and more often than not; not so bright users (think Matt Wrights FormMail script). However I haven't seen many of you refering to mod_perl, only the slack syntax that perl allows and that this is a bad thing(???). You can write crap code in any language.
I feel that the perl community are more experienced at writing correct code, something which is well reflected in CPAN. I find that most PHP code I come across was written by someone that is learning to program by trial and error and have only done so for a short while. Just compare the PHP vulnerability count to perl for web apps, it appears every man and his dog writes PHP apps. I have even seen people claim that their applications were less exploitable since they didn't user version numbers(WHAT THE???).

The short and sweet of it is, until another scripting language creates something that can compare with CPAN (and contains a similar number of MATURE commonly used modules, sorry PEAR), I would not consider changing from perl. Although I do the trivial stuff in PHP as it generally puts a lower load on the servers if they do not have mod_perl installed.

MERLiiN

merliin wrote:The short and sweet of it is, until another scripting language creates something that can compare with CPAN (and contains a similar number of MATURE commonly used modules, sorry PEAR), I would not consider changing from perl. Although I do the trivial stuff in PHP as it generally puts a lower load on the servers if they do not have mod_perl installed.
MERLiiN

I'm not going to argue that PERL has a large archive of share library resources in CPAN. BUT.. PECL (PHP Extension Community Library) & PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) are being used and they are gaining a larger following... archives arent built over night.

The same goes for Python though.. Python is a great language and the bulk of google is built ontop of the language... but PyPI (Python Package Index)repository isn't huge either..

You know my dog could program in Perl and release code.. so just because some one codes in PERL doesnt make it more mature, or less vulnerable either. That stands to say about all code. Code is only as good as the coder.

Not defending the statement...

merliin wrote:I have even seen people claim that their applications were less exploitable since they didn't (use) version numbers(WHAT THE???).

but Security through obscurity does have some merit.. only works when the coders doesnt broadcast the version numbers.. but version numbers must be used for documentation purposes and in administration areas..
I.E. phpbb removing the version number from the footer. It doesnt make the code safer, it just makes exploitable code less visable. (No neon sign saying my door is unlocked... )
A little google hacking example of ihackstuffDB for phpbb

Perl might be effective, but it's ugly as hell. I prefer having 10% more code, but a lot cleaner and more beautiful. Also, as goose said, code's quality depends on the coder, not on the language, and personally I find it harder with Perl to write secure code than with C++ or TCL.

psyx0th wrote::shock: I dind't know I could create GUIs with PHP witch only proves my point:
PHP is growing fast. Now is completly OO and and you are able to compile .EXEs and create nice looking GUIs while in PERL you can't (i think. Not realy a PERL fan)

Wrong. Perl has one of the largest 3rd-party-collections. Gentoo's Portage has an own package category for that (dev-perl) and it contains almost 600 packages. It's the largest package category that Portage has.

Perl is great and very easy to learn. It is nr 1 for me scripting simple task or doing programs that is just very simple. The only thing I really miss is the documentation on the win32gui. Its very portable too, making standalone exe for the windows platsform without having to install perl is just great. On my list, perl stands as nr 3 of very nice languages.

Perl archive module = CPAN
www.cpan.org

PHP is a cgi!

PHP is easy and designed to make web pages.

Perl is a powerful and EXTENSIBLE language.

I can download and add functionality in perl that is not in php. That being said perl is much more mature than php.


Each has it's place.

And as for comparing them to compiled languages, It's not fair.

A compiled language (c c++) program is going to have a smaller memory footprint and much faster execution time.

That being said you can export perl to c and compile it or compilr it natively.

krod wrote:i have read an article saying that perl and cgi are being replaced by asp, php and other new server side scripting languages, i strongly dis-agree with this statement. What do you think about it?

I think that classical CGI is decreasing and Ajax[1] is increasing. But Perl has the power to keep being up to date. Actually it's ready[2] for Ajax.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
[2] http://search.cpan.org/dist/CGI-Ajax/lib/CGI/Ajax.pm

Regards
Thomas