Skip to main content

How is memory management in PHP different from that in Python?

Image
By User


What is the difference in how they are handled?



Specifically, why is it common to find Python used in production-level long lived applications like web-servers while PHP isn't given their similar efficiency levels?



Source: Tips4all, CCNA FINAL EXAM
Labels:

Comments

  1. UserMay 15, 2012 at 9:24 AM

    PHP was designed as a hypertext scripting language. Every process was designed to end after a very short time. So memory management and GC basically didn't matter.

    However the ease and popularity of PHP have invoked its usage in long lived programs such as daemons, extensive calculations, socket servers etc.

    PHP 5.3 introduced a lot of features and fixes that made it suitable for such applications, however in my opinion memory management was of lower significance on that matter.

    PHPs error management is quite good now, but as in every programming language that I know of you can produce memory leaks.

    You still cannot code in the same style that you can code Java or Python applications. A lot of PHP programs will probably show severe problems where Java/Python do not.

    You can characterize this as "worse", but I would not. PHP just is a different set of tools that you have to handle different.

    The company I work at has a lot of system programs and daemons written in PHP that run like a charm.

    I think the biggest caveat for PHP when it comes to as you describe "production-level long lived applications" is its multi-processing and threading ability (the 2nd is basically nonexistent).

    Of course there is the possibility to fork processes, access shared memory, do inter process communications and have message queues and stuff. But Python is far ahead on that matter, because it was designed bottom up for jobs like that.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why is this Javascript much *slower* than its jQuery equivalent?

By User
I have a HTML list of about 500 items and a "filter" box above it. I started by using jQuery to filter the list when I typed a letter (timing code added later): $('#filter').keyup( function() { var jqStart = (new Date).getTime(); var search = $(this).val().toLowerCase(); var $list = $('ul.ablist > li'); $list.each( function() { if ( $(this).text().toLowerCase().indexOf(search) === -1 ) $(this).hide(); else $(this).show(); } ); console.log('Time: ' + ((new Date).getTime() - jqStart)); } ); However, there was a couple of seconds delay after typing each letter (particularly the first letter). So I thought it may be slightly quicker if I used plain Javascript (I read recently that jQuery's each function is particularly slow). Here's my JS equivalent: document.getElementById('filter').addEventListener( 'keyup', function () { var jsStart = (new Date).getTime()...
3 comments
Read more

Is it possible to have IF statement in an Echo statement in PHP

By User
Thanks in advance. I did look at the other questions/answers that were similar and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I'm trying to do this, am I on the right path? echo " <div id='tabs-".$match."'> <textarea id='".$match."' name='".$match."'>". if ($COLUMN_NAME === $match) { echo $FIELD_WITH_COLUMN_NAME; } else { } ."</textarea> <script type='text/javascript'> CKEDITOR.replace( '".$match."' ); </script> </div>"; I am getting the following error message in the browser: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_IF Please let me know if this is the right way to go about nesting an IF statement inside an echo. Thank you.
5 comments
Read more