:Network Computing: Web-Page Generator PHP Gets A Much-Needed Jolt in Version 4
Network Computing: Web-Page Generator PHP Gets A Much-Needed Jolt in Version 4 Nov 2, 1999, 16 :43 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (4960 reads) (Other stories by Ahmad Abualsamid)
"PHP began as a small project to enhance a single Web site; it
eventually became the most popular server-side scripting language for
use with Apache. But though the open source product has come into
wide use in its most recent version, PHP3, it's been limited primarily to
small- to midsized projects. PHP3's handling of "garbage
collection"-reclaiming memory resources that are no longer used in a
program-as well as its performance and syntax make it less than
optimal for large, complex projects."
"But that should change with PHP4, which is in beta (available at
www.php.net) and being readied for final release in the first quarter of
2000. PHP4 has a rewritten scripting engine, named Zend
(www.zend.com) after its two authors, that offers much faster
performance than the original engine. The new engine and new
language features, such as resource reallocation (garbage collection),
object overloading and object-oriented extensions, make PHP a strong
contender for server-side scripting development in simple and complex
projects alike."
"PHP4 has no server-specific code; its resulting platform-independence
gives you added flexibility-you can choose NT, Linux or other Unix
versions, depending on your hardware and skills. Nor are you limited to
Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) or Apache Web
servers-you can use either of these, or a different server altogether.
And you're free to use a multitude of databases as your back end."
