PHP vs Java

As part of a class at ITT tech I'm researching the two languages Java and PHP. I hoping to gather opinions on general perfomance and other aspects of both. I would appreciate anyone willing to answer the following questions.

1. Which is easier to learn PHP or Java?

2. Which is a more robust language PHP or Java?

3. Which is faster PHP or Java?(performance of comparable scripts)

4. Which is more secure PHP or Java?

5. Which is better PHP or Java?

Any coments on why one is better then the other would be a great help.

Are you asking about Java or Javascript?

Java. J2EE

I'll take a crack at this but first a disclaimer - I've been a J2EE engineer for about 6 years now and have only done PHP on the side so read my answers knowing my potential bias.


From a pure language perspective I guess it depends. PHP 5 finally introduced some true object oriented capabilities. However, some would argue that learning OO at the same time as learning syntax is harder. So if you're new to all programming Java might be slightly harder as it requires OO concepts. PHP has more of a C and Perl flavor and relaxes many of the things that catch first time programmers.


A loaded question if I ever answered one. I would argue in favor of Java on this one but only slightly. The JVM (Java virtual machine) prevents many of the types of things that languages like C allow but really so does PHP. In this case it is really the environment (i.e. J2EE or PHP in an Apache environment) that makes one better or worse. The language does not really contribute to the quality.


Out of the box I would say Java. You need to understand more about Java than your question implies you do. Java is a precompiled language, unlike PHP. PHP, out of the box, is a 100% interpreted language. Java is partially interpreted. Modern JVM's have things like just in time compiling that drastically improve the performance of long running programs. PHP has commercial and non-commercial add ons that also help improve performance by allowing the engine to parse the script once and cache that information.


Again, I'd lean towards Java but also again, it is more of an environment issue. Both languages protect against some misuse though I think Java does a bit of a better job of it. Java allows someone shipping a library to "sign" the code - the end user is then able to certify that the code came from the correct place. PHP does not have the same built in mechanism.


What is best for me may not be best for someone else. For example, if one of the criteria I use to choose a language is that it is trivial to change from one hosting provider to another then PHP would be a better choice - there are a ton more hosts out there that support PHP than Java. So the answer is "it depends". Why not C? C++? Python? etc, etc, etc. In some cases something else may make more sense.

Again, I've been using Java for a while now. In the old days PHP was a fairly simple scripting language. It has grown to be truly production caliber. The same can be said for Java. Very large sites with 10's of thousands of hits per second run Java. The exact same thing can be said of PHP. In the end it is up to the architect of the system to figure out which would be better for a particular installation.

Perfect reply, I appreciate you taking the time and I ejoyed your comments. I can tell that you are an experienced projrammer.

As you've noticed I don't know alot a bout Java. When I started this I new less. This topics seams to be old and the arguments exaustive. As I look more and more into I've noticed that what I'm really comparing is the architecture of the two. I think comparing a precomiled language to an interpreted language is like comparing apples and oranges.

Thanks again for the comments