RE: MySQL on System i

From: David Gibbs

Dunno for sure ... but there are a bunch of commercial organizations
that are running their web apps with PHP.

But what is a web app? Are we talking a store front, or serious order
entry? Even the standard online banking application doesn't hold a candle
to a real online transaction processing system.

My concerns as always center on the business logic: what level of business
rules are being coded in PHP?

My guess is that PHP, like Java, likes a dedicated
processor and so interaction with RPG will need to be carefully managed.

My gut says that PHP won't quite be that intensive ... I *THINK* it will
run as a module in Apache (same as it does in other platforms) so the
resources required shouldn't be all that incredible.

I think this is going to depend on how you code the PHP. I have to believe
that the OO features of PHP require the same type of heap management and
garbage collection as Java, which is one of the primary factors that causes
Java to not work and play well with the per-page nature of i5/OS work
management.

Add to that the extremely heavy processor load of an interpreted language,
which is going to affect your PHP whether it's OO or not. And since as far
as I know there is no JIT compiler for PHP, that means that the interpreter
overhead is always there.

I don't know. We obviously need to see more real world data. I'm just
saying that there is as good a reason as not for PHP to not be exactly kind
to traditional i5/OS configurations.

Joe