(From behind filing cabinet where I am ducking preparing for flames). Is it just me or is there anyone else that thinks PHP suffers from not being modular. Let me explain myself. If you write a module for a lot of procedural languages it sits on the filling system and is called up when it is needed , loaded into memory and executed. There maybe some cashing which happens but this is basically how it works.
PHP on the other hand seems to load in ALL the code that MAY be run. i.e. an include brings things in which are inside an if, even if the if equates to false. This means that the language is not extendible in the way others are. If you do write a function you wish to include in 'only the pages you wish to use' you have to first include it, then call it. This has also meant that things like spell checking functions are built into the core module rather than called in as or when they are needed. Then there is the way database connectivity is handled. There are a load of functions (again in the core language) with there NAMES containing the name of the database you are connecting to. For example all MySQL functions are mysql_something and I guess all oracle ones are oracle_something. This would only be a minor inconvenience because wrapper functions can be written but from what I can gather different databases have different functionality available. I know this is partly because different databases have different functionality. what I would expect to see is a load of generic function which attempt to provide same functionality where it is available or implement some of the functionality themselves. Obviously for some of the less sophisticated databases these functions would have to do more work and maybe some functionality wouldn't be available in certain databases (but only the things like stored procedures). Got a nast feeling that ASP (spit) does something like this. You may cry, it cant be done. however I remember a connectivity product that came from Borland (this was back in the Paradox Days) which did just this, it even had transaction handling built into this connectivity layer for DBase! Anyway I am playing Devils Advocate. What I do like about PHP is how quickly it can be learnt and how quick you can build apps with it. Maybe this is at the expense of elegance. Maybe PHP5 will address these issues -;) And there are certainly some very busy PHP sites, you should see the traffic levels on indymedia.org during anti-capitalist demonstrations and I am sure during the New York attacks they went belistic. Regards, Ben -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
