PHP vs. Java

Stinger51

I'm an avid C++ and PHP user, but market conditions are forcing me to take a look at Java.

But before I go off and climb the mountain in search of more spiritual answers to web dev, only to get to the top and find a bunch of PHP theologians have been sitting there for centuries, some questions if I may, directed at you bi-lingualists (PHP & Java users) :

If and when I get to the mountain top, will I find Java as useful for web dev as PHP is?
Is there anything PHP can't really handle that Java can, despite Java's slightly better object orientation?
What's the best dev package out there for learning Java?
Is a Java applet the same as a Java bean?

Thanks in advance for your input. And no religious warfare, please! 😃

stolzyboy

Not likely
Yes, but strictly for the web, No
You'll want to get the latest JDK (Java Development Kit) from java.sun.com
In short, No.

You probably will get responses like this since it is a PHP forum, but most are civil/honest when answering these questions.

Stinger51

That's about how I thought it would be.

What's prompting my quest is that Flipdog.com (job site) had about 4,000 listings for Java developers nation wide, but only 200 for PHP developers. And one has to eat, don't we know.

I didn't know where else to post this question, except possibly on one of the Java forums. But they are a lot less likely to know about PHP than vice versa here.

stolzyboy

a lot of job postings are HR people not knowing what to put, so they google for programming languages and put ones down that sound like a big deal

ya ever notice that said company needs a PHP developer and the requirements are

PHP, ASP, PERL, Cobol, IIS, Apache, Linux, MSSQL, etc... just about everything in the world

well that's a prime example of what job postings are all about

Stinger51

Yeah, the requirements are getting beyond ridiculous, just to screen out people, I guess. So the only applicants that get thru are just a bunch of liars.

Me, I see more than 3 or 4 job requirements (and those better be related, like PHP & MySQL), I just pass.

Stinger51

Do you know if Java allows client side operations (on a web page) as JavaScript does?

If not, then I see no advantage in using Java over PHP.

superwormy

Stinger51, if you dont' even have any clue what Java is capable of, then you SHOULDN'T BE JUDGING IT LIKE THAT!

Sheesh, I'd think thats fairly obvious. But anyway, YES, it DOES allow client-side operations. Java is a bit different than PHP in that its an actual programming language, not 'just' a web scripting language ( because, YES, thats what PHP really is, although its beginnning to expand to more than that what with shell scripting and the ability to write SQL triggers and such for PostgreSQL with it now... )

From a programing language standpoint, Java is FAR superior and FAR more advanced than PHP.

Java is also very well established and backed by a huge company already.

drawmack

Originally posted by Stinger51
- If and when I get to the mountain top, will I find Java as useful for web dev as PHP is?

no but when you need to obfuscate java is much better then php purly because it is compiled and can be better then c++ because you don't have to recompile for different machines. For example say you don't want two records related in the database in anyway that makes simple sql statement gleaning possible which means no foreign key is available, at least not a direct one. You could use a mathmatical function to generate a key, or list of keys, for table 2 that relate to the primary key in table 1. Now you don't want that function hanging out on the server in plain text so you could do this in java instead of php.

- Is there anything PHP can't really handle that Java can, despite Java's slightly better object orientation?

real-time programming and 'live' server connections. PHP uses a dead connection. This means that it runs and generates something that is displayed to the user, then php does not run again until it receives a message from the browser to do so which results in the entire page being refreshed. In java you can hook an applet to a bean and have them communicating without a page refresh. This modle works much better for some applications especially real time apps.

- What's the best dev package out there for learning Java?

java in a nutshell and java examples in a nutshell used in combination with one another.

- Is a Java applet the same as a Java bean?

Would you give the same thing two different names?