Sorry, had to step away from the discussion for personal reasons.
Please don't paint me as a one-hit(or miss)-wonder :-)
Thank you for the most gracious welcome! I still have a ways to go with
PHP as I was only using it recreationally before May. (Honest officer!)
Your four points are very well made and like any good Steven King novel
they have woven a thread of truth. I'll give you MY OPINION of each as
I am INTIMATELY acquainted with them. Technical rebuttal welcome! Yes
I have a bias but I have been a PHP bigot long before joining Zend. Now
I'm just a bigot with a quota :-)
1) No installation required... (Advantage PHP)
While it is relatively true, you still need to configure an Apache
server and create a library copy of DB2WWW in a working library, deal
with security and get HelloWorld going. For the experienced this might
be about 10 minutes worth of work, for the great unwashed, upwards of a
day. The PHP installation is well documented for i5, well discussed in
the forums(ours as well as theirs), and comes with a no-charge support
contract that will get you up and running if you stumble. Oh, and there
are people inside AND outside IBM advocating its quasi-strategic nature!
If you have dropped software support for your system i, you are on your
own with Net.Data. But it should work!
2) Very easy to get started...
Assuming we ar talking about programming and not just setup, this point
is equitable regarding both solutions. (draw)
3) Seductively simple to learn... (Advantage PHP)
Maybe. But maybe also because of its thoughtful but limited instruction
set. Last I checked there were two books on learning Net.Data. PHP has
over a thousand. Oh, and the FREE online tutorial at php.net for those
of you who cannot expense a $30 book.
4) Exceptional integration with native language environments...
(advantage Net.Data)
Hands down you win on this one. But...that doesn't mean PHP is at a
total loss. With the i5 tool-kit (which may see a better name in the
near future) you have access to all sorts of native environment features
like data areas, system values, data queues, and yes--dare I say
it--PROGRAMS. You can call ALL HLL programs from PHP and pass parms
back and forth. No issues. Last I checked the charge for the tool-kit
was....$0.00. Yes, PHP runs in PASE. I've already gone into that. But
so does WAS!
Regards,
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 8:09 AM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Truly later thinking...Honey, grab me another
beer!
Mike Pavlak wrote:
I've been too quiet for too long. Time to throw my hat
in the ring.
Let me welcome you to the discussion, first. I had been thinking that
both PHP and Net.Data were under-represented on this list. And your
summary of some of the history between IBM and Zend was interesting.
Regarding your question about why anyone would learn Net.Data, given the
resources that are being poured into PHP, the following comes to mind:
No installation required.
Very easy to get started.
Seductively simple to learn.
Exceptional integration with native language environments.
It's that 4th point that is the biggest selling point for me. Net.Data
runs under the native virtual machine, and integrates exceptionally well
with native language environments. If I were serious about scripting
languages, this would be important to me.
Nathan.
midrange.com
