Re: Why use PHP? What are the disadvantages?

But here's my question. How often do you actually prefer a variable to hold
a character in one line of code and then have that same variable hold an
integer in the next? In all my uses of PHP that has only led to hard to
read code and lots of bugs (as it relates to business logic code).

Loose typing is great/better for writing frameworks where you might not know
(or care) what value is being passed through the bowels, but I feel much
more comfortable with a compiled object when it comes to my business logic.
Maybe just a personal insecurity :-)

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/


On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 3:43 PM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

The main issue I have with PHP is really it's a scripting language.
Not that scripting languages are bad, but I just like my end
programs compiled. (Quick >Google search does show you can compile
PHP, I was unaware of that).

A nice feature of running PHP as an interpreted language is the flexibility
in variable typing. Variable type in PHP depends on context. You don't get
that when you compile a program. Compiled programs require that you define
variable types in advance and they can't change.

I would _love_ to see a PHP-to-ILE compiler on the IBM i. That way, we
could use PHP as a scripting language for web apps and as a compiled
language for batch apps. We could also mix PHP with RPG, COBOL, C, and CL as
ILE modules. We could do something like Facebook is doing with PHP and C++
(except we'd be doing it with PHP and ILE).

Kelly Cookson
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Dot Foods, Inc.
217-773-4486 x12676
www.dotfoods.com