Jul 23 2004
Decisions, decisions
Just when I thought I was done with PHP, they start to pull me back in. PHP 5 looks nice, I like the improved OO support. The real kicker though, are the following two links:
http://propel.phpdb.org/wiki/
http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/4990
The first is for a PHP5 Object – Relational mapper, the second is for a PEAR library that builds forms dynamically. Form building / validation and SQL are typically the two hurdles I like least in web app building. Webware / Python has SQLObject and a few Form kits that make these two areas a breeze.
Lots of stuff to think about.
In addition, I spoke at length with a friend of mine yesterday afternoon about the Java equivilants of the Webware – SQLObject model that I’m really excited about. He pointed me to Hibernate and Spring, both of which have been pretty well written up on http://www.onjava.com.
PHP is easy, but I always feel limited by it not being very OO. Python is great, but now that PHP5 is out, web apps may be easier to build in straight PHP than Python.
So, in short, I’m going to try out some of this new PHP 5 stuff, and see how it goes. I’m actually pretty amazed at the new PHP 5, they may have managed to bring me back into the fold.
