Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

In this issue, the editor will bring you about the differences between PHP and Node.js and what are their respective advantages and disadvantages. The article is rich in content and analyzes and describes for you from a professional point of view. I hope you can get something after reading this article.

The network is in an era of rapid development. Server-side developers are confused when choosing languages, ranging from long-dominant languages such as C, Java and Perl to languages that focus on web development, such as Ruby, Clojure, and Go. As long as your project works well, your choices are less important.

But how do you get these new web developers to make the right choice?

I don't want to start a war between the PHP and NodeJs camps. I will compare the developments in the field of the two languages:

PHP

Rasmus Lerdorf created PHP in 1994. It is run by components installed on the web server (Apache, Ngix). PHP code can be mixed with HTML. It doesn't take much practice for beginners to write valuable code quickly. This makes PHP more and more popular, and PHP is now running on 80% of the servers around the world. WordPress, a content management system used by 1/4 of the world's websites, is written in PHP.

Node.js

Ryan Dahl created Node.js in 2009. It is a Google-based V8 JavaScript interpretation engine (in Chrome browsers it is responsible for executing client-side JavaScript code). Unlike other languages, Node.js has built-in libraries to handle web requests and responses, so you don't need separate servers (Apache, Ngix) or other dependencies. Although Node.js is very new, it soon gained a lot of popularity. It is used in many large companies, such as Microsoft,Yahoo,LinkedIn and PayPal.

Our favorite C#, Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, Erlang, C++, Go, Dart, Scala, Haskell and so on, what about them?

If the article compares the various parameters of all the languages mentioned above, the article will be very long, will you still read it? Do you expect a programmer to know all the programming languages? This is obviously impossible. I mainly compare PHP and Node.js for the following reasons:

First of all, they are worth comparing. Both are open source, both are dedicated to web development, and both can be used for similar projects.

PHP has been released for a long time, but Node.js is just emerging and is getting more and more attention. Should PHP programmers believe Node.js 's hype? Should we consider changing the language?

I know and love programming languages. I've been using PHP and JavaScript since the 1990s, and I also have several years of Node.js experience. In addition, I have dabbled in other technologies, but I can't evaluate them objectively here.

In addition, it doesn't matter how many languages are compared, because there will always be some people somewhere who complain that I didn't mention their language.

Competition on SitePoint

Programmers spend a lot of time improving their own programming skills. Some people have the ability to extend between programming languages, but those who reach a higher level make their own choices based on many factors. Subjectively, you will advance and defend your technical decisions.

SitePoint Smackdowns does not take the view of "choose what suits you, my friend". I will make suggestions according to my personal experience, requirements and preferences. You may not agree with everything I have said, which is not important. What matters is that your opinion will give others a wiser choice.

Evaluation method

PHP and Node.js will be compared in ten rounds below. Each round considers common development challenges that can be applied to any web technology. We won't go too deep into the details; few people care about the value of random number generators or array sorting.

The winner of the most rounds will be the winner. Are you ready? Let's start the fight.

* Wheel: start

How fast is it to create a "Hello World" web page? In PHP:

This code can be placed in any file that can be parsed by the PHP engine-typically, a file with the suffix .php. Enter URL in the browser to jump to the file.

There is no denying that this is not all. This code can only be run on web servers with PHP installed (PHP has a built-in server, but even so, * * uses a more robust server). Most operating systems provide server software, such as IIS,Mac on windows and Apache on Linux, although they need to be started and configured. It is common to use pre-built installers, such as XAMPP or virtual machine images (such as Vagrant). An easier way: upload your files to any web host.

By contrast, installing Node.js is a breeze. You can download the installer or use the package manager. Next, let's create a web page in hello.js:

Var http = require ('http'); http.createServer (function (req, res) {res.writeHead (200,{' Content-Type': 'text/plain'}); res.end (' Hello Worldwaters');}) .customers (3000, '127.0.0.1')

Before you can access http://127.0.0.1:3000/ in a browser, you need to type node hello.js on the terminal to start the application. With the above five lines of code, we have created a small web server, which is surprising, but it is difficult for even people with strong client-side JavaScript experience to understand.

PHP wins this round because it is conceptually simpler. People who have a little knowledge of the PHP declaration can develop something useful. PHP has more software dependencies, but the concept of PHP is less tedious for beginners.

Knowing some JavaScript and developing Node.js applications are two different things. Node.js development methods are different from most server-side technologies. You need to understand some rather complex concepts, such as closing and callback functions.

Second round: help and support

You will struggle without the help of official documents and resources (courses, forums, stack overflows). PHP won easily in this round. She has a lot of guides and two decades of QQ A. Whatever you want to do, there will always be someone who has faced the same problem before you.

Node.js is well documented, but younger and offers less help than PHP. JavaScript has been on the market for as long as PHP, but the main help is for browsers, which doesn't help much.

Round 3: language Grammar

Are declarations and structures logical and simple to use?

Unlike some languages and frameworks, PHP does not restrict you to write in a specific way. You can do whatever you want. You can start with a few lines of program, then add some methods, and then write some simple PHP4 schema objects, and * write elegant object-oriented MVC schema PHP5+ applications. Your code may be messy at first, but it also works, and it will get better and better as you understand it.

The syntax of PHP may be slightly adjusted between versions, but backward compatibility is generally done well. Unfortunately, this also leads to a problem: PHP is very confusing. For example, how to count the number of characters in a string? Is it count? Str_len? Or strlen? Or mb_strlen?PHP has hundreds of functions, and the naming conventions are not exactly the same. Try writing a few lines of code without looking up the document.

JavaScript is relatively simple, with only a few dozen core declarations. However, syntax is often sprayed by developers because its prototype object model looks approachable, but in fact it is not. And various mathematical errors (0.1-0.2! = 0.3) and confusion of type conversions ('4' + 2 = = '42' and' 4'-2 = = 2) also attract a lot of complaints, but these situations rarely cause problems in the world, and most languages have such excuses.

PHP has his strengths, but I judge Node.js to win this round. The reasons are as follows:

JavaScript is the most difficult language in the world to understand-but when you have an epiphany and understand the concept, you will find that other languages are too clumsy.

The JavaScript code is simpler than PHP. For example, you don't have to walk around with JSON anymore-- neither does UTF-8.

Full stack engineers can use JavaScript on both the client and the server side. The brain doesn't need to switch back and forth.

A deep understanding of JavaScript will make you want to use it more, but PHP is not.

Round 4: development tools

Both technologies have some good editors, integrated development environments, debuggers, validators, and other tools. I think it's a draw, but here are some tools that give Node.js some advantage: the NPM- package manager. NPM allows you to install and manage dependencies, set configuration variables, define scripts, and more.

PHP's Composer project is inspired by NPM and is stronger in some ways. However, PHP is not available by default, the activity library is smaller and has less impact on the community.

NPM is also partly responsible for the growth of build tools that have revolutionized development methods such as Grunt and Gulp. Sometimes PHP developers may want / need to install node.js, which is not a step backwards.

Round 5: environment

Where can technology be used and deployed? Which platforms and ecosystems are supported? Web developers often need to develop applications that are not entirely specific to web pages, such as build tools, migration tools, database conversion scripts, and so on.

PHP has ways to develop desktop applications and command-line tools, but you won't use them. In essence, PHP is a server-side technology, and he is good at it, but rarely extends beyond it.

A few years ago, JavaScript was thought to be very restrictive and had some edge technology, but his main battleground was the browser. Node.js has changed this feeling and spurted out a lot of JavaScript projects. You can use JavaScript anywhere: browsers, servers, terminals, desktops and even embedded systems, which makes JavaScript ubiquitous.

Round 6: integration

Development techniques are limited unless they can be integrated with databases and drivers. PHP is strong in this respect. PHP has been around for many years, and his extension allows him to communicate directly with servers with mainstream or unpopular API.

Node.js is catching up, but you may have a headache looking for mature integration components for some old, unpopular technologies.

Round 7: hosting and deployment

How easy is it to deploy your gorgeous new application to an online web server? This is another complete victory for PHP. Contact a web hosting company at random and you can find major PHP support, perhaps with MySQL for free. For sandboxie, PHP is considered simpler and risky extensions can be disabled.

Node.js is a different beast, and server-side applications run forever. You need a physical / virtual / cloud or custom server environment. * has root permission, which is out of reach for some servers, especially those that are shared, and you may bring the whole server down.

Node.js hosting will be easy, but I don't think it will ever be as convenient as FTP uploading some PHP files.

Round 8: performance

PHP is diligent, and there are many projects and options that can make it run faster. Even PHP developers who have strict performance requirements rarely worry about speed, but Node.js performance is generally better. Of course, performance depends largely on the experience and attention of the development team, but Node.js has the following advantages:

Less dependence

All requests for PHP applications must be routed through a WEB server to start the PHP interpreter to run PHP code. Node.js doesn't need these dependencies, and you'll almost certainly use a framework with a server, like Express, which is lightweight and plays a good part of your application.

A smaller and faster interpreter

Node.js 's interpreter is smaller and more flexible than PHP's. He is not dragged down by compatibility issues left over from older languages, and Google has made great efforts to improve the performance of the V8 engine.

Apply * online

PHP follows the standard client-server model. Each page request initializes the application; you read configuration parameters, connect to the database, read information, and render HTML. The Node.js application runs for a long time and only needs to be started once. For example, you can create a separate data connection object and reuse the request together. Admittedly, there are some ways to implement PHP, such as using Memcached, but this is no longer a standard feature of the language.

Event-driven, non-blocking Ithumb O

PHP and most other server languages adopt a blocking execution model. When you execute a command, such as fetching data from a database, you must wait for the instruction to be executed before executing the following. Node.js doesn't usually wait. Instead, you need to provide a callback function that will be called once after the instruction is executed. For example:

/ / fetch records from a NoSQL database DB.collection ('test'). Find ({}) .toArray (process); console.log (' finished'); / / process database information function process (err, recs) {if (! err) {console.log (recs.length + 'records returned');}}

In this example, the console outputs' finished', and then'N records returned', 'because the process function is called only when all data is returned. In other words, the interpreter can do something else while other processes are dealing with it.

Note that the situation is complicated, and there are several warnings:

Node.js/JavaScript can only be run on a single thread, but most web servers are multithreaded and process requests concurrently.

JavaScript processing that one user runs for a long time will prevent other users' code from executing unless the task is split or Web Workers is used.

Benchmarking is subjective and flawed; you can find some examples Node.js is better, and some relative examples PHP is better. Programmers are just trying to prove their faith!

Writing asynchronous event-driven code is very complex and challenging.

I can only tell from my experience that my Node.js app is significantly faster than its PHP counterpart. Yours may not be, but you'll never know until you try.

The ninth round: developer passion

This goes beyond the goal of "common web development challenges", but it is important. If you're afraid of writing code every day, you don't care which language is better.

It's hard to compare, but some PHP developers are passionate about the language PHP. When was the last time you read a PHP article or slide that distracted you? Maybe there's no need to talk about it? Could it be a lower exposure? Or am I in the wrong place? PHP7 has some new features, but the technology has been standing still for many years, even though few developers complain about PHP.

JavaScript is separated from the community, loved and hated, and some programmers are hesitant in the middle. Even so, the feedback on Node.js is mostly positive, and she is in the limelight, in part because she is new and the praise may not last. At present, Node.js wins this round.

Round 10: prospects

It doesn't matter which server language you choose; she will continue to work even if she is no longer updated (yay ColdFusion! Although usage tends to be stable, many people still use PHP, and I'm sure she can hold on for another 20 years.

Node.js has sprung up rapidly, providing a modern development approach that supports HTML5 transformational features such as web sockets and server-side sending events using the same syntax as client-side development. Despite some controversy about the bifurcation function of the language, the use of Node.js is growing exponentially.

Node.js is bound to erode PHP's market share, but I don't think she can completely replace it. Both technologies have a bright future. I declare this round a tie.

Final score: Node.js won 5 rounds, PHP won 4 rounds, one round tied. I thought I would fall to one side, but it turned out to be more moderate than I expected.

Node.js has a certain learning curve, which is not ideal for beginners, but she won the showdown. Moreover, if you are a reliable JavaScript programmer who likes the language, Node.js will not let you down. She is more up-to-date and provides her own web development experience, you won't miss PHP.

But don't belittle that PHP,PHP is still alive. You shouldn't follow the Node.js trend just because Node.js is faster, newer or trendy. PHP is easy to learn and still supports professional programming skills, help is ubiquitous and development is easy. Even diehard Node.js developers have to consider using PHP for simple websites and applications.

My advice is: evaluate the options and choose a language according to your needs, which is much more reliable than a "comparison" article like this one.

The above is the difference between PHP and Node.js shared by Xiaobian, as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages. If you happen to have similar doubts, you might as well refer to the above analysis to understand. If you want to know more about it, you are welcome to follow the industry information channel.

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