PHP Performance

Will it ever Matter if PHP Sucks? - Lately in PHP podcast episode 23

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:54:57 GMT

Will it ever Matter if PHP Sucks? - Lately in PHP podcast episode 23

By Manuel Lemos

Once in a while we see fans of other languages writing long articles on why PHP sucks and you should not use it. But will that ever matter?

That is one of the main topics discussed by Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert in the episode 23 of the Lately in PHP podcast, for the first time also recorded in video using Google Hangouts On Air.

They also covered other polemic ideas for future PHP versions like the pure PHP script proposal, making function names case-sensitive and the option to skip optional function parameters.

Another interesting topic discussed in this podcast is about the proposals for HTTP 2.0 protocol.

Listen to the podcast, watch the video recording or read the transcript to learn about these and other interesting PHP related topics.

Making the Web Faster with HTTP 2 Protocol

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:24:10 GMT

Making the Web Faster with HTTP 2 Protocol

By Manuel Lemos

The HTTP protocol version 2.0 is in the process of being defined. There was a call for proposals and several researchers submitted specifications and ideas that can make the Web faster and better in several other aspects.

Read this article to learn about the details of these proposals and what Web developers can expect to prepare to take advantage of the planned improvements of the HTTP 2.0 protocol.

The Debate of Making PHP Faster using a JIT Compiler - Lately in PHP podcast episode 19

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:10:35 GMT

The Debate of Making PHP Faster using a JIT Compiler - Lately in PHP podcast episode 19

By Manuel Lemos

The official PHP implementation is evolving too slowly, while alternative implementations like Phalanger and Facebook HipHop can run PHP faster thanks to the use of JIT compiler engines.

JIT compilation was the main topic of the episode 19 of the Lately in PHP podcast presented by Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert who received as guests Miloslav Beno of the Phalanger team and Nuno Lopes of the PECL LLVM project to discuss this and other interesting topics of the PHP scene.

They also made a brief retrospective of what happened in the PHP world in 2011 and what they expect for 2012.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript here.

Can .NET make PHP run faster than the official PHP implementation?

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:50:26 GMT

Can .NET make PHP run faster than the official PHP implementation?

By Manuel Lemos

Phalanger is compiler that generates .NET assemblies from PHP code, so it runs in a .NET virtual machine.

The latest benchmarks seem to indicate that PHP applications compiled by Phalanger execute noticeably faster than when they are executed by the official PHP implementation based on Zend engine, even when a caching extension is used.

Read this article to learn how Phalanger works and what lessons can be learned to make the official PHP implementation run at least as fast, eventually in PHP 6 based on Zend Engine 3.

Top 10 Wrong Ideas About PHP That You Should Get Right

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:36:47 GMT

Top 10 Wrong Ideas About PHP That You Should Get Right

By Manuel Lemos

PHP is often a misunderstood language by people that either love or hate it.

On one side there are developers that hate PHP apparently because they do not quite understand how it works. They do not respect PHP and prefer other languages. So they lose many opportunities to make good money from the PHP market, which has so many high paying jobs for qualified developers.

On the other side there are developers that love PHP but do not take full advantage of the language because they are not fully aware of all they can do with it.

This article attempts to clarify some of the most common wrong ideas that many developers have about PHP.

Read the article to the end, so you may eventually start having a better perspective about PHP and take advantage of the opportunities that this language and the PHP ecosystem can provide you.

2010: Yet another great year for PHP

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:53:35 GMT

2010: Yet another great year for PHP

By Manuel Lemos

2010 was an year full of interesting happenings for the PHP development and its community of developers.

This article presents a balance of what were the most important happenings in the PHP community in 2010, as well a reflection of what we can expect for 2011 for PHP, as well for the PHPClasses site.

Hardware Accelerated PHP, PHP 5.3.4, PHP 5.4 hold off, mod_PageSpeed and AJAX 2 - Lately in PHP podcast episode 7

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:59:59 GMT

Hardware Accelerated PHP, PHP 5.3.4, PHP 5.4 hold off, mod_PageSpeed and AJAX 2 - Lately in PHP podcast episode 7

By Manuel Lemos

On this episode of Lately in PHP podcast, Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert discuss the proposal of using video card GPUs to accelerate PHP.

They also comment on the upcoming release of PHP 5.3.4 expected for mid-December, as well the PHP 5.4 hold off debate that has been going on due mostly to the lack of consensus between core developers.

Apart from those PHP issues, they also comment of accelerating Web pages using Google mod_PageSpeed Apache 2 module, as well about the new features of XMLHttpRequest Level 2 JavaScript object to implement AJAX applications.

Accelerate Web Pages Automatically using Google Mod_PageSpeed: Unusual Site Speedup Techniques Part 4

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:06:32 GMT

Accelerate Web Pages Automatically using Google Mod_PageSpeed: Unusual Site Speedup Techniques Part 4

By Manuel Lemos

After several months of development, Google announces a stable release of mod_pagespeed, an Apache 2 Web server module that can automatically optimize the Web pages that are served by Apache without any changes to the actual scripts that generate those Web pages.

This article explains in more detail what is mod_pagespeedup and how you can use it to improve the speed of serving your site Web pages.

Unusual Site Speedup Techniques debate, Named parameters and Annotations - Lately in PHP podcast episode 6

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 06:59:59 GMT

Unusual Site Speedup Techniques debate, Named parameters and Annotations - Lately in PHP podcast episode 6

By Manuel Lemos

In this episode, Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert discuss several unusual site speedup techniques presented in recent articles of the PHPClasses site blog.

They also discuss the (non-)inclusion of new PHP features discussed by PHP core developers like having named parameters in function calls and the support of Java-like annotations in PHP code.

Accelerate scripts running multiple tasks in parallel using asynchronous programming: Unusual Site Speedup Techniques: Part 3

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:15:57 GMT

Accelerate scripts running multiple tasks in parallel using asynchronous programming: Unusual Site Speedup Techniques: Part 3

By Manuel Lemos

Asynchronous programming allows developers to write faster code by running multiple parallel tasks at the same time.

This contrasts with the traditional synchronous programming on which programs perform a task and do nothing else besides waiting for the task to finish before proceeding to the next task.

This article explains better what is asynchronous programming and how you can implement it in PHP to develop code that executes tasks much faster.