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Much easier to deploy safely than C, its slower performance has always
been more than balanced by the comparatively fast development cycle it offers.
Even more useful has been the increasing availability of a large number of
stable code libraries for Perl. So where does PHP fit in? PHP was written
especially for the Web. Many of the issues and problems faced by Web programmers
are addressed within the language itself. Whereas a Perl programmer must use an
external library or write code to acquire data submitted by the user of a Web
page, PHP makes this data automatically available. Whereas a Perl programmer
must install modules to enable her to write database-driven environments, PHP
bundles a powerful SQL database library and provides built-in support for a
whole range of third-party databases. In short, because PHP has been created for
Web programmers, it has a set of functions for almost any typical problem you
might encounter, from managing user sessions to handling XML documents.
So, do we have to pay for this ease of use with even slower performance? Not
at all. PHP is designed to run as a module with many server applications, which
means that there are none of the start-up overheads associated with CGI scripts.
The fact that many typical tasks are handled by PHP means that developers are
freed from reliance on utility libraries that can slow things down.
It is not the case that PHP does not provide libraries, though. Perl has the
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), and PHP has the PHP Extension and
Application Repository (PEAR)—its own repository of powerful packages that
extend PHP's power.
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