Interesting Article "Experiences of Using PHP in Large Websites"

[David]

I found and interesting article, "Experience s of Using PHP in Large
Websites" (http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/) ,
which lists some issues with scaling PHP for larger projects. Worth
a read although it appears to be three years old.

The major issue I have had with PHP is a conflict in class names for
modules created by two project teams. We resolved this by prefixing
all class names with a module ID, ex. "ModuleName__<C lass Name>"

The only mistake I can see with this article is a statement that you
can only have one php.ini per server.

Who is using PHP for larger projects and how do you handle the naming
issue?

[Wayne]

Re: Interesting Article &quot;Experienc es of Using PHP in Large Websites&quot;

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 20:03:00 -0500, David <martindb@sbcgl obal.net>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>Who is using PHP for larger projects and how do you handle the naming
>issue?[/color]

I use "package" naming where each class is prefixed with it's path
location separated by underscores. Examples:

Net_Mail_Messag e
Web_UI_Control_ TextBox
Data_Driver_MyS qlConnection

It's a *very* large PHP5 project.

[Chung Leong]

Re: Interesting Article &quot;Experienc es of Using PHP in Large Websites&quot;

David wrote:[color=blue]
> I found and interesting article, "Experience s of Using PHP in Large
> Websites" (http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/) ,
> which lists some issues with scaling PHP for larger projects. Worth
> a read although it appears to be three years old.[/color]

Why do people keep bringing up this stupid article? It's both partisan
and dishonest. Starting with the title: it purports to be an article
about the experience of using PHP in large projects, yet there was zero
discussions about actual problems encounter. Everything is just the
author's opinions.
[color=blue]
> Who is using PHP for larger projects and how do you handle the naming
> issue?[/color]

Easy. You just rename one or both of the classes.

[Colin McKinnon]

Re: Interesting Article &quot;Experienc es of Using PHP in Large Websites&quot;

David wrote:
[color=blue]
> I found and interesting article, "Experience s of Using PHP in Large
> Websites" (http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/) ,
> which lists some issues with scaling PHP for larger projects. Worth
> a read although it appears to be three years old.
>[/color]

Not really - the article is rather badly written, poorly justified, and in
several instances just plain wrong. I find it remarkable that someone could
produce so many words about PHP development without mentioning code
testing. (see recenet thread here regards typing / variable declaration).
[color=blue]
> The major issue I have had with PHP is a conflict in class names for
> modules created by two project teams. We resolved this by prefixing
> all class names with a module ID, ex. "ModuleName__<C lass Name>"
>
> The only mistake I can see with this article is a statement that you
> can only have one php.ini per server.
>
> Who is using PHP for larger projects and how do you handle the naming
> issue?[/color]

I have about 600,000 lines of PHP here, 6 programmers and between 1 and 3
web designers. The servers field about 3 million requests/day. Is that big?

I use a similar approach - any global symbol in an include file should be
prefixed by the file name e.g. file transact_db.inc .php might contain fn
transact_db_ini (), class transact_db, fn transact_db_que ry(), fn
transact_db_dic onnect()...

The namespace thing is an old chestnut in PHP circles. I had some time
recently to have a think about it and wrote my own namespace handler (in
PHP). Next time I have some time free I'll publish it somewhere.

The ,ost important advice I could give to anyone embarking on a large-scale
project using PHP would be:

- set strict style/naming guidelines - the PEAR ones are a useful starting
point
- use unit and integration testing
- don't worry about scalability - PHP has it in spades

HTH

C.