Better for high trafic site: shtml or php

wmac

Hello,

I have a site with a very high hit rate on pages.

I want to ask a qyestion from those of you having busy sites. I want to have a header and footer for all pages. What do you suggest? PHP or shtml?

Regards,
Mac

drawmack

php is much faster unless php is run in cgi mode and they are using mod_perl - however with an eye toward the future perl is dying and php is growing.

superwormy

If its just a header and footer... I don't think you'll notice a difference either way.

Oh, and according to several surveys... Perl usage is still growing :-)

Perl is definitally not dying, its a default install on a shatload of Unix distros, its here to stay.

TheIceman5

Originally posted by superwormy

Oh, and according to several surveys... Perl usage is still growing :-)

how old the surveys? 10 yearrs??

all the dozens and dozens of developers i know are turning towards php in droves and forgetting perl. all of them used to be perl programmers lkike myself, im happy if i never see a perl script again.

drawmack

In the last 4 years 7 major universities have changed from teaching PERL to teaching PHP.

wmac

My main concern is the same thing you mentioned. Speed of includes and parsing.

I will not use dynamic contents , I just want to be able to modify template of entire website whenever I want in future without being forced to edit each single page.

Perhaps I do this on my personal computer then (just create pages in raw mode and do header and footer appends when I want to upload pages).

Regards,
Mac

drawmack

the quickest way to accomplish this is on appache and use .htaccess.

________

Why don't you test it your self?
use the microtime function:
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.microtime.php

superwormy

Go Google for surveys on Perl and PHP usage. Perl CGI usage and mod_perl usage are both growing according to several recent ( read: last month and this year ) surveys I found. It's not growing as much as PHP, but its growing.

Also, as noted, Perl is included in a ton of Linux and Unix/BSD installs by DEFAULT. Perl is def. here to stay in Linux/Unix/BSD environments for quite a while.

Also, for YEARS, Perl has been a great option for web scripting, mod_perl continues to develop and make it an even better option. TONS of sites are created using Perl... and all those sites need to be maintained. In my experience, it is VERY seldom that a business is willing to take an application they've dumped TONS of money into, and totally scrap it and rewrite it in another, unfarmiliar and younger language. Someone has to maintain those sites, and build on them in the future.

The fact that PHP is created by a for-profit company can also be a turn-off to many companies... what happens if someday the next version of PHP becomes closed-source? If you suddenly have to pay for it?

In any case wmac, I highly doubt you'll ever reach a point using either language where you have to worry about the speed of just including a header and footer, or even a ton of files. I'm not advocating Perl, and I'm not advocating PHP, but I would encourage you to realize that either is an option. If you want a real answer, you should go out and benchmark it both ways.

Oh, and just because a University ( Hehe, and WOW, 7 of them, Oooh! Do you have any idea how many universities there are in the United States alone? THOUSANDS! ) teaches PHP instead of PERL doesn't mean Perl is dying... I know of several universities who teach .NET specific C++ instead of standard C++... does that mean C++ is dying and .NET will dominate the world? Of course not, for a number of reasons which I won't even begin to go into. I also know of several major univrsities who teach QBASIC and BASIC... says a lot for Universitites doesn't it? And just because all the people you know don't like Perl... doesn't mean its not an appropriate solution or that it's dying either. It just means that a lot of the people you know don't like Perl. I don't like flat-panel monitors... neither do my friends, does that mean they're dying? I don't like cats or dogs either, are they going to disappear from the face of the earth too?