| Why PHP? [message #180660] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 07:14  |
clayjar
Messages: 3
Registered: March 2013
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I'm a developer at a small but fast growing team at a university medical group. We've had a separate team working on an EMR system for many years on a Windows platform (using C# language), and it's still a big mess mostly due to early but poor architectural decisions. I've been working on a (non-patient data) administrative data system for over 3 years on a LAMP platform. The system I've developed, including the framework designed around the needs of our team, is very stable, easily extensible, user-friendly, and multisite capable.
We're at a point where the EMR system has to be refactored completely inside out for it to be sustainable and viable for mobile access and for other needs. We need to get buy-ins from the .NET/C#/Visual Studio/Windows team as well as from our boss. A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with to build Personal Home Pages. Apparently, he hasn't been keeping himself up-to-date on web development scene.
I need to present a strong case for choosing the LAMP platform, and PHP in particular. I have a very strong, intuitive notion about why LAMP is more suited for web applications than Windows-based alternatives, and experience to back it up, however, I lack professional knowledge about the difference between the two. What page or what information would you recommend to convince somewhat that LAMP platform is better suited for web apps? (Or PHP vs. C#). I have searched enough and pursued this information online, however, it is difficult to ascertain the objectivity due to salient biases and other factors.
I've been using PHP to build many websites for over a decade, and I try to avoid any type of argument for or against a language, because it really depends on how one uses the tools to get something done, although the quality of tool being used does matter to certain degree. The point of this exercise really comes down to trying to convince others to use the framework I've built over the years which is now capable enough to accommodate for more complex systems. The language I happened to use is PHP and the platform is LAMP. If I had started on JSP using Java I wouldn't be doing this, as my friend in our Windows-platform team believes Java to be "enterprise-ready" but not PHP. I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other proprietary platforms.
Thank you for your help.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180662 is a reply to message #180660] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 09:03  |
Michael Vilain
Messages: 88
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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In article <17a9677a-3785-4b5f-a4cf-e78ffd5191a1(at)googlegroups(dot)com>,
clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> I'm a developer at a small but fast growing team at a university medical
> group. We've had a separate team working on an EMR system for many years on a
> Windows platform (using C# language), and it's still a big mess mostly due to
> early but poor architectural decisions. I've been working on a (non-patient
> data) administrative data system for over 3 years on a LAMP platform. The
> system I've developed, including the framework designed around the needs of
> our team, is very stable, easily extensible, user-friendly, and multisite
> capable.
>
> We're at a point where the EMR system has to be refactored completely inside
> out for it to be sustainable and viable for mobile access and for other
> needs. We need to get buy-ins from the .NET/C#/Visual Studio/Windows team as
> well as from our boss. A particular individual on the C# team likes the word
> "enterprise" a lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play
> around with to build Personal Home Pages. Apparently, he hasn't been keeping
> himself up-to-date on web development scene.
>
> I need to present a strong case for choosing the LAMP platform, and PHP in
> particular. I have a very strong, intuitive notion about why LAMP is more
> suited for web applications than Windows-based alternatives, and experience
> to back it up, however, I lack professional knowledge about the difference
> between the two. What page or what information would you recommend to
> convince somewhat that LAMP platform is better suited for web apps? (Or PHP
> vs. C#). I have searched enough and pursued this information online, however,
> it is difficult to ascertain the objectivity due to salient biases and other
> factors.
>
> I've been using PHP to build many websites for over a decade, and I try to
> avoid any type of argument for or against a language, because it really
> depends on how one uses the tools to get something done, although the quality
> of tool being used does matter to certain degree. The point of this exercise
> really comes down to trying to convince others to use the framework I've
> built over the years which is now capable enough to accommodate for more
> complex systems. The language I happened to use is PHP and the platform is
> LAMP. If I had started on JSP using Java I wouldn't be doing this, as my
> friend in our Windows-platform team believes Java to be "enterprise-ready"
> but not PHP. I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker and our
> boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other proprietary
> platforms.
>
> Thank you for your help.
First off, I have a bias towards open systems and no love for Microsoft.
But I'll try to keep my prejudices to myself in giving you another view
on this problem. I often wonder why a specific language or technology
is chosen for use with specific project. Early on, I knew FORTRAN and
VAX BASIC best with some C. Then I picked up various shell programming
languages and added Perl and PHP. I've stayed pretty much on UNIX and
MacOS.
While you may not be able to make this determination, do you see your
applications growing or moving away from a Windows-based environment?
Do you a development team that can code with equal facility in php and
C# or is there retraining required? Is the company willing to pay the
yearly Microsoft developer's 'tax' (they call it maintenance and
licensing) to keep the development tools up-to-date and current?
All things being equal, I would think that developing something depends
on how well your developers know their tools. I was originally sent on
a consulting project because the customer thought they'd be developing
it in FORTRAN. A couple weeks in, they switched to Pascal, which I
_could_ do but loath. The project manager got a more senior person who
could do the Pascal coding and went on to something else.
I don't know C# or Java but according to Wikipedia, they're both
object-oriented languages. All the features you describe are similar.
The difference is that Java is supposed to be portable across multiple
platforms and O/S. My experience is it's write-once and debug
everywhere.
php isn't really the same sort of language as Java and I'm guessing C#.
It can run as a discrete process for each page using the CGI model. Or
it can run as part of the threaded Apache server as a module. AFAIK,
Java and C# talk to an application server using the browser as a front
end OR as a stand-alone program. I'm sure some C# people will be
jumping on me real soon for getting it wrong.
I'd nail down what 'enterprise ready' means for the C# people. My own
thought is 'does it scale?'. To often, applications aren't built with
large concurrent user communities in mind. As a sysadmin, I had to
clean up implementations that didn't allow for downtime and backups or
left lots of temp files around. But slobs are slobs in C, FORTRAN,
Java, or C#.
--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...
[I filter all Goggle Groups posts, so any reply may be automatically ignored]
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180664 is a reply to message #180660] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 13:45 |
Jerry Stuckle
Messages: 2598
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 3/8/2013 2:14 AM, clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> I'm a developer at a small but fast growing team at a university medical group. We've had a separate team working on an EMR system for many years on a Windows platform (using C# language), and it's still a big mess mostly due to early but poor architectural decisions. I've been working on a (non-patient data) administrative data system for over 3 years on a LAMP platform. The system I've developed, including the framework designed around the needs of our team, is very stable, easily extensible, user-friendly, and multisite capable.
>
> We're at a point where the EMR system has to be refactored completely inside out for it to be sustainable and viable for mobile access and for other needs. We need to get buy-ins from the .NET/C#/Visual Studio/Windows team as well as from our boss. A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with to build Personal Home Pages. Apparently, he hasn't been keeping himself up-to-date on web development scene.
>
> I need to present a strong case for choosing the LAMP platform, and PHP in particular. I have a very strong, intuitive notion about why LAMP is more suited for web applications than Windows-based alternatives, and experience to back it up, however, I lack professional knowledge about the difference between the two. What page or what information would you recommend to convince somewhat that LAMP platform is better suited for web apps? (Or PHP vs. C#). I have searched enough and pursued this information online, however, it is difficult to ascertain the objectivity due to salient biases and other factors.
>
> I've been using PHP to build many websites for over a decade, and I try to avoid any type of argument for or against a language, because it really depends on how one uses the tools to get something done, although the quality of tool being used does matter to certain degree. The point of this exercise really comes down to trying to convince others to use the framework I've built over the years which is now capable enough to accommodate for more complex systems. The language I happened to use is PHP and the platform is LAMP. If I had started on JSP using Java I wouldn't be doing this, as my friend in our Windows-platform team believes Java to be "enterprise-ready" but not PHP. I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other proprietary platforms.
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
I'm not sure PHP is a good answer for your situation. It sounds like
your group is not very familiar with PHP, and would have to learn a new
language. That in itself is time consuming and contains a fair amount
of risk.
OTOH, you have (evidently more senior) people who are strongly favoring
the MS solution, and are strongly in favor of it. Even of their design
decisions in the past have not been the greatest, they do have a design
which will probably require significant modification to work with a
different language. It isn't even your group doing the refactoring.
This is more of a political decision than a technical one, especially in
the university environment. There are many things to consider, and to
provide an unbiased opinion on the best way to go would take an unbiased
person time to look at the project and discuss with the people involved
before making a decision. It's not a situation you can describe
accurately in a few paragraphs, especially since you seem to be as
biased for PHP as the "enterprise" guy is against it.
Please don't get me wrong - I'm not a big MS fan, either. However, when
looking at platforms, I try to put my biases aside and make the best
decision for the project.
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex(at)attglobal(dot)net
==================
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180667 is a reply to message #180660] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 17:37 |
J.O. Aho
Messages: 194
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 08/03/13 08:14, clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> I need to present a strong case for choosing the LAMP platform, and PHP in particular. I have a very strong, intuitive notion about why LAMP is more suited for web applications than Windows-based alternatives, and experience to back it up, however, I lack professional knowledge about the difference between the two. What page or what information would you recommend to convince somewhat that LAMP platform is better suited for web apps? (Or PHP vs. C#). I have searched enough and pursued this information online, however, it is difficult to ascertain the objectivity due to salient biases and other factors.
I have been working with both, I don't have really too much experience
of the web part when it comes to dotnet, but it has a lot of drawbacks
when it comes to the early releases, getting better in C# 4.5 framework.
If you are using a lot of Linux specifics, then of course C#/dotnet is a
poor choice and if you relay a lot on microsoft products, then C# may be
better. C# in itself is quite okey and there is mono which is supports
more platforms (Linux, OSX, ms-windows, ...) and could be used as a
middle way, it allows the PHP team to work with the Linux which they are
used to and the C# team gets the coding language they are used with.
In the end it's how you integrate things which will give you a "best
option", but I doubt the team will be able to write much better than
previous time, no matter what you choose.
> I've been using PHP to build many websites for over a decade, and I try to avoid any type of argument for or against a language, because it really depends on how one uses the tools to get something done, although the quality of tool being used does matter to certain degree. The point of this exercise really comes down to trying to convince others to use the framework I've built over the years which is now capable enough to accommodate for more complex systems. The language I happened to use is PHP and the platform is LAMP. If I had started on JSP using Java I wouldn't be doing this, as my friend in our Windows-platform team believes Java to be "enterprise-ready" but not PHP. I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other proprietary platforms.
You could always ask if anyone of them has used wikipedia of flickr and
ask them if they think they use enterprise solution or not. Most likely
all of them have happen to use one or the other and I doubt your system
will get near the usage those two php based sites.
Myself I have seen that mcirosoft followers have difficulties to see
benefits in more open projects and tend to treat them as non enterprise
solutions as they are free and as everyone know enterprise solutions
always costs a lot money.
Sadly I don't have a good answer to give you, but take the benefits you
have, like you already have a stable, fast and tested framework and no
need of spending time on trying to get together a C# framework for the
project which will serve your companies needs. Bring in the guys who
makes the budget, tell them how much they would save if the company went
with the in-house framework instead of spending loads of money on
license fees and if you have some good technical operation guys, I think
they rather have a stable fast patched computer system than waiting a
month or even up to 18 months to get a patch (there are some serious
bugs in C# <=3 which hasn't been fixed in 5 years). And last, the PHP
will always be easier to migrate to another platform, while the
microsoft solution will always be locked and there is no where to go
when EOF happens to the server version you are running and the dotnet
version ain't compatible with the dotnet version default on the new
generation of ms-server-windows.
--
//Aho
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180668 is a reply to message #180665] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 18:53 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 993
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> ...
>> A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>> lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>> to build Personal Home Pages.
> ...
>> I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>> and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>> proprietary platforms.
>
> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>
Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
:-)
--
Ineptocracy
(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180669 is a reply to message #180668] |
Fri, 08 March 2013 19:53 |
Robert Heller
Messages: 60
Registered: December 2010
Karma: 0
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At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>
> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>> ...
>>> A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>> lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>>> to build Personal Home Pages.
>> ...
>>> I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>> and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>> proprietary platforms.
>>
>> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>
> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
servers scale well.
>
> :-)
>
>
--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller(at)deepsoft(dot)com
Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180670 is a reply to message #180660] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 05:38 |
clayjar
Messages: 3
Registered: March 2013
Karma: 0
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Junior Member |
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It may be more helpful to me if you could state the number of years of experience in which development environment. The collective experience found here is much weightier than what I can put on the table on my own. I'd like to use your opinions if you don't object to that. I've formed the analysis document into categories of "Proprietary vs. Open Source", "Windows vs. Linux", "IIS vs. Apache", "SQL Server vs. MySQL", "C# vs. PHP". Basically, it comes down to a philosophical issue, and yes, I have my development tent pitched on a free software philosophy. I'm also hesitant about taking this route to form a persuasive presentation, because as many of you already mentioned, the competency of the team along with the factor of learning curves are major determinants than other things.
We are trying to take a long view approach to deal with the sustainability of our own development team, and it's unquestionably clear that open source approach is the way to go for us given the budget and many restraints that are in place, however, there have been years of mismanagement, thus producing an untenable environment that is merely being maintained at status quo simply to avoid hurting people's feelings. Our software products are becoming more important in the overall strategy as we are growing rapidly. As someone already had also mentioned, in a university setting, there is indeed a large overhead, mostly associated with politics. Sometimes, my stomach churns when I start pondering about the amount of tax money we've burnt through simply to maintain a status quo on a crap software. All these so-called managers get away with it all, topped off posh benefits with degrees and undeserved, illusory prestige.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180671 is a reply to message #180660] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 05:46 |
clayjar
Messages: 3
Registered: March 2013
Karma: 0
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Junior Member |
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It may be more helpful to me if you could state the number of years of experience in which development environment. The collective experience found here is much weightier than what I can put on the table on my own. I'd like to use your opinions if you don't object to that. I've formed the analysis document into categories of "Proprietary vs. Open Source", "Windows vs. Linux", "IIS vs. Apache", "SQL Server vs. MySQL", "C# vs. PHP". Basically, it comes down to a philosophical issue, and yes, I have my development tent pitched on a free software philosophy. I'm also hesitant about taking this route to form a persuasive presentation, because as many of you already mentioned, the competency of the team along with the factor of learning curves are major determinants than other things.
We are trying to take a long view approach to deal with the sustainability of our own development team, and it's unquestionably clear that open source approach is the way to go for us given the budget and many restraints that are in place, however, there have been years of mismanagement, thus producing an untenable environment at status quo simply to avoid hurting people's feelings. Our software products are becoming more important in the overall strategy as we are growing rapidly. Thank you, and I hope to hear more of your inputs on this.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180672 is a reply to message #180670] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 06:06 |
Michael Vilain
Messages: 88
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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In article <4628d3d3-ea23-4be2-825a-7090a04bef0d(at)googlegroups(dot)com>,
clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> It may be more helpful to me if you could state the number of years of
> experience in which development environment. The collective experience found
> here is much weightier than what I can put on the table on my own. I'd like
> to use your opinions if you don't object to that. I've formed the analysis
> document into categories of "Proprietary vs. Open Source", "Windows vs.
> Linux", "IIS vs. Apache", "SQL Server vs. MySQL", "C# vs. PHP". Basically, it
> comes down to a philosophical issue, and yes, I have my development tent
> pitched on a free software philosophy. I'm also hesitant about taking this
> route to form a persuasive presentation, because as many of you already
> mentioned, the competency of the team along with the factor of learning
> curves are major determinants than other things.
>
> We are trying to take a long view approach to deal with the sustainability of
> our own development team, and it's unquestionably clear that open source
> approach is the way to go for us given the budget and many restraints that
> are in place, however, there have been years of mismanagement, thus producing
> an untenable environment that is merely being maintained at status quo simply
> to avoid hurting people's feelings. Our software products are becoming more
> important in the overall strategy as we are growing rapidly. As someone
> already had also mentioned, in a university setting, there is indeed a large
> overhead, mostly associated with politics. Sometimes, my stomach churns when
> I start pondering about the amount of tax money we've burnt through simply to
> maintain a status quo on a crap software. All these so-called managers get
> away with it all, topped off posh benefits with degrees and undeserved,
> illusory prestige.
30 years ago, I took an internal project management class when I was
working for DEC. The first day, the instructor did the typical
intro--goals of the class, who's here, why, and what they want to cover,
and her qualifications. Then she put this slide up:
PHASES OF A PROJECT
1. ENTHUSIASM
2. DISILLUSIONMENT
3. PANIC
4. SEARCH FOR THE GUILTY
5. PUNISHMENT OF THE INNOCENT
6. PRAISE AND HONORS FOR THE NON-PARTICIPANTS
Over the years, I've not see this model change. Ever. It's like
running something akin to a rational orderly project that gets it's
deliverables in on time and budget are not part of the corporate or
government culture. You're obviously somewhere between #4, #5, and #6
here.
I suspect that whatever happens and whatever direction this project
goes, it won't be on technical merits. But there I go, being a cynic
again.
--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...
[I filter all Goggle Groups posts, so any reply may be automatically ignored]
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180675 is a reply to message #180671] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 11:22 |
J.O. Aho
Messages: 194
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 09/03/13 06:46, clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> It may be more helpful to me if you could state the number of years of experience in which development environment.
PHP: ~9 years
C#/dotnet: ~3 years
> I'd like to use your opinions if you don't object to that.
Surely dotnet has much built in when it comes to input verification, but
at the same time it makes it inflexible and sometimes feeling that you
have no say on how to do things. PHP is more flexible and using a
framework still allows you easy access the values and adding your own
features, but at the same time if you haven't tough of all the dangers,
then you may end up with a less secure product (of course if you have
made a MVC2 dotnet application, it will be insecure as microsoft will
not release a patch to older version of dotnet which would prevent code
injection with crafted input values, at least php has the advantage you
can patch a fault yourself in the version you use if upstream don't
provide a backport to the version you are using).
Surely the Visual Studio and MonoDevelop are excellent tools to develop
dotnet applications with and giving you a lot of help, which you lack in
most IDE when it comes to php, specially break point in the code,
allowing you to step through the code and even allow you to modify
variable values.
When it comes to online documentation, php.net is difficult to beat and
microsoft has a long long path to walk before they are anywhere near and
you will also find a lot of bad solution examples for dotnet out there
as it's been quite popular in India (too many not so good coders over
there who made HOWTOs, but there are a handful exceptions).
At my current work, we have a mixed environment, where we have
dotnet/iis based web servers, but the main logic is run on linux servers
on c++ based daemons. It works, but I feel that IIS ain't at all as good
as Apache (I may be colored by the almost 20 years I have been using
Apache) and I prefer Apache over IIS and of course Apache running on
Linux/BSD over Apache on ms-windows.
> I've formed the analysis document into categories of "Proprietary vs. Open Source", "Windows vs. Linux", "IIS vs. Apache", "SQL Server vs. MySQL", "C# vs. PHP".
SQL Server is okey at some times, don't rule it out even if you choose
to use PHP, it has it's benefits over MySQL, but also it has it's
drawbacks. I wouldn't pick MySQL as it's not that transaction safe, even
using innodb, but maybe you should look at PostgreSQL which has a major
benefit over MySQL as PostgreSQL can handle data encryption (some of the
patient data may be good to store as encrypted data).
When it comes to my experience of OS, Linux and BSD are far faster to
get security updates and i maybe would favor the BSD over Linux if you
are storing critical patient data (or at least have a BSD based
loadbalancer/firewall in front of the Linux machines), for you I don't
think switching over to BSD would be a big thing, most of the things
would be pretty similar. Don't forget that many microsoft updates
require you to reboot the system, the only time you need to reboot a
Linux/BSD system is when you needed to upgrade the kernel (there is
money costing option for Linux which can even make it possible to patch
the kernel without reboot).
> Basically, it comes down to a philosophical issue, and yes, I have my development tent pitched on a free software philosophy.
> I'm also hesitant about taking this route to form a persuasive presentation, because as many of you already mentioned, the
> competency of the team along with the factor of learning curves are major determinants than other things.
I think the curve will be approximately the same, no matter which way
you go, as long you have done a good documentation of your framework, if
not, go through your code, make proper comments where it's needed and
use a tool like phpdoc to generate a documentation.
It's in the end the side with the most convincing arguments (in the
bosses ear) that will be the winner, and it has nothing to do with which
is the best solution. So money, stability, security are those things you
may have to focus on.
> We are trying to take a long view approach to deal with the sustainability of our own development team,
Then moving to the open source is a far better then being closed in, as
I mentioned the MVC2 issue, we are still suffering of the potential risk
(even if we have been adding our own validation, but you never know when
someone forgets to add that extra validation to a variable) and you
can't just switch to MVC3/4 without rewriting the whole thing.
Just keep on pointing out the long waiting time for critical bugs and
near EOL and after there is no way to get those issues fixed in a
microsoft environment, you need to upgrade to the new version, getting a
new license for everything and then rewrite more or less everything again.
> and it's unquestionably clear that open source approach is the way to go for us given the budget and many
> restraints that are in place, however, there have been years of mismanagement, thus producing an untenable
> environment at status quo simply to avoid hurting people's feelings.
To get rid of the bad, it's better that those who has been indoctrinated
in the bad ways to switch to something new, as they have to learn
something new and at the same time it's easier to teach them to do
things the right way, if they stay with what they are familiar with, the
risk is higher they will keep on doing the same bad mistakes as they did
before as they think they know everything already.
Something you could do is to setup an automatized deployment of a test
environment using git (or svn) and teamcity (or jenkins). We have setup
so that when a new feature branch is pushed to stash (we use the
atlassian stash as our git daemon), teamcity deploys it so it can be
tested by our test team. When a feature branch is merged into develop
branch we get teamcity to deploy it to the proper test environment. The
main branch is always deployed to the stage environment, but teamcity
only builds an install package as we can't have an automatic deployment
to the live environment and our tehcops needs to have a chance to
practice the installation before doing it live.. Having things automatic
and feature rich, you will make a wow factor and show how well your
setup works, if you then even attach some automatic test suites to it
like Selenium (we are just in the evaluation phase of which test suite
we ill use, so can't advice which one to use), but having at least some
basic automatic tests done on each deployment will ensure you that
things still work without the need of spending time, if you then attache
the overall result of the test (success/failed) in stash(jira (another
atlassian product), then you know if the feature branch should not be
merged to the develop branch (of course you need to maintain the test
cases if features changes, and it should be the developer who made the
big change who fixes the test case).
Of course the automatic testing shouldn't be a replacement for unitests,
but a complimentary, also it's not a replacement for real testers.
A boss who would see something like this (and never seen it before in
the company), would most likely choose the automatic testing, easy
merging of code, for this is how an enterprise development environment
should work.
> Our software products are becoming more
> important in the overall strategy as we are growing rapidly.
I think it can bee good on think of the whole process from planing a
feature, develop the feature, test the feature and deploy the feature
and show how much time will in general be spent on each step, and of
course you choose the worst options for the system you don't like.
Keep in mind to tell of the positive things with your setup to people
around, even those who don't have anything to do with the decision, like
if you have something like techops, then you could tell them how little
time and preparation they would need for deploying the php project,
while using dotnet they would need to learn loads of new tools and it
would still be difficult (of course don't like, but bend the truth a
bit, the microsoft way).
Don't forget to push that your development system is already up and
running, while switching to C#/dotnet and rewrite most of the things
would delay the product at least 3 months or even 12 months (we made a
replacement system completely in C# it took us 13 months to rewrite
everything from scratch and it had less features (~1/3) than the old
system and we had 6 developers working on it), we know which frameworks
we would be using, but still 3 months was used to fine tune things and
set a coding standard and rewrite parts which didn't match the new standard.
As you have the framework, you would directly starting with porting the
features to the new platform and those you have saved at least 3 months
in developing time, the bigger team the more money you save.
I hope there is something you will have use of.
--
//Aho
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180676 is a reply to message #180660] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 14:13 |
daveh
Messages: 18
Registered: March 2013
Karma: 0
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Junior Member |
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On Mar 8, 2:14 am, clay...@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm a developer at a small but fast growing team at a university medical group. We've had a separate team working on an EMR system for many years on a Windows platform (using C# language), and it's still a big mess mostly due to early but poor architectural decisions. I've been working on a (non-patient data) administrative data system for over 3 years on a LAMP platform.. The system I've developed, including the framework designed around the needs of our team, is very stable, easily extensible, user-friendly, and multisite capable.
>
> We're at a point where the EMR system has to be refactored completely inside out for it to be sustainable and viable for mobile access and for other needs. We need to get buy-ins from the .NET/C#/Visual Studio/Windows team as well as from our boss. A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with to build Personal Home Pages. Apparently, he hasn't been keeping himself up-to-date on web development scene.
>
> I need to present a strong case for choosing the LAMP platform, and PHP in particular. I have a very strong, intuitive notion about why LAMP is more suited for web applications than Windows-based alternatives, and experience to back it up, however, I lack professional knowledge about the difference between the two. What page or what information would you recommend to convince somewhat that LAMP platform is better suited for web apps? (Or PHP vs.. C#). I have searched enough and pursued this information online, however, it is difficult to ascertain the objectivity due to salient biases and other factors.
>
> I've been using PHP to build many websites for over a decade, and I try to avoid any type of argument for or against a language, because it really depends on how one uses the tools to get something done, although the quality of tool being used does matter to certain degree. The point of this exercise really comes down to trying to convince others to use the framework I've built over the years which is now capable enough to accommodate for more complex systems. The language I happened to use is PHP and the platform is LAMP. If I had started on JSP using Java I wouldn't be doing this, as my friend in our Windows-platform team believes Java to be "enterprise-ready" but not PHP. I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other proprietary platforms.
>
> Thank you for your help.
Have you looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistA its a quite
advanced EHR/EMR system. Of course I'm assuming when you say EMR you
are talking about Electronic Medical Records?
It is very well supported in the open source community.
Dave
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180677 is a reply to message #180660] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 15:22 |
Arno Welzel
Messages: 317
Registered: October 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com, 2013-03-08 08:14:
[PHP/LAMP vs. C#]
> Thank you for your help.
You can not really compare C# to PHP.
PHP is full of "historical flaws" and started as set of CGI scripts that
eventually evolved to an object oriented scripting language. But you
still see its roots and strange things because of this (e.g. how PHP
deals with literals or the non-existing naming convention of functions
etc.).
If you are familiar with PHP and it's "glitches", you may deal with it
and this may not be a problem for you.
But technically C# is often the better solution, so i would recommend
the platform mainly based on the experience of the people involved with
the project. If the team knows C# better then PHP, then stay with C# -
it's not a bad language at all and yes, you can create web applications
as well. If the team does not have any experience in efficient project
management (Scrum, Kanban etc.) and if the don't know how to do a good
software design, the choice of the programming language is not the major
problem anyway.
--
Arno Welzel
http://arnowelzel.de
http://de-rec-fahrrad.de
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180681 is a reply to message #180669] |
Sat, 09 March 2013 23:41 |
Richard Yates
Messages: 86
Registered: September 2013
Karma: 0
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Member |
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On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:53:08 -0600, Robert Heller
<heller(at)deepsoft(dot)com> wrote:
> At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>>> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>>> lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>>>> to build Personal Home Pages.
>>> ...
>>>> I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>>> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>>> and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>>> proprietary platforms.
>>>
>>> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>>
>> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
>
> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
> servers scale well.
Also WordPress
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180682 is a reply to message #180681] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 00:06 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 993
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 09/03/13 23:41, Richard Yates wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:53:08 -0600, Robert Heller
> <heller(at)deepsoft(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>>>> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> > A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>>> > lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>>>> > to build Personal Home Pages.
>>>> ...
>>>> > I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>>> > objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>>> > and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>>> > proprietary platforms.
>>>>
>>>> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>>>
>>> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
>>
>> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
>> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
>> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
>> servers scale well.
>
> Also WordPress
>
the speed of WORDpress does not IMpress.
--
Ineptocracy
(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180690 is a reply to message #180669] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 15:45 |
Arno Welzel
Messages: 317
Registered: October 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Robert Heller, 2013-03-08 20:53:
> At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>>> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>>> lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>>>> to build Personal Home Pages.
>>> ...
>>>> I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>>> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>>> and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>>> proprietary platforms.
>>>
>>> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>>
>> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
>
> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
> servers scale well.
Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
--
Arno Welzel
http://arnowelzel.de
http://de-rec-fahrrad.de
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180691 is a reply to message #180690] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 16:54 |
The Natural Philosoph
Messages: 993
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 10/03/13 15:45, Arno Welzel wrote:
> Robert Heller, 2013-03-08 20:53:
>
>> At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>>>> clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> > A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>>> > lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around with
>>>> > to build Personal Home Pages.
>>>> ...
>>>> > I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>>> > objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>>> > and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>>> > proprietary platforms.
>>>>
>>>> Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>>>
>>> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
>>
>> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
>> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
>> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
>> servers scale well.
>
> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
>
>
The American solution. Throw money and hardware at sub standard software
? :-)
>
--
Ineptocracy
(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180692 is a reply to message #180691] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 18:43 |
Arno Welzel
Messages: 317
Registered: October 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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The Natural Philosopher, 2013-03-10 17:54:
> On 10/03/13 15:45, Arno Welzel wrote:
>> Robert Heller, 2013-03-08 20:53:
[...]
>>> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
>>> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
>>> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
>>> servers scale well.
>>
>> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
>> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
>> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
>>
>>
> The American solution. Throw money and hardware at sub standard software
> ? :-)
Propably - yes ;-)
Anyway - i spend a while to get my own PHP installation on
<http://arnowelzel.de> to perform the way it does. "Out of the box" PHP
is neither "fast" nor "scalable".
--
Arno Welzel
http://arnowelzel.de
http://de-rec-fahrrad.de
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180693 is a reply to message #180691] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 20:51 |
Jerry Stuckle
Messages: 2598
Registered: September 2010
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 3/10/2013 12:54 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 10/03/13 15:45, Arno Welzel wrote:
>> Robert Heller, 2013-03-08 20:53:
>>
>>> At Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000 The Natural Philosopher
>>> <tnp(at)invalid(dot)invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 08/03/13 17:11, Martin Leese wrote:
>>>> > clayjar(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>>>> > ...
>>>> >> A particular individual on the C# team likes the word "enterprise" a
>>>> >> lot and still believes PHP to be a mere toy that kids play around
>>>> >> with
>>>> >> to build Personal Home Pages.
>>>> > ...
>>>> >> I'm sincerely asking the PHP community here to point me to some
>>>> >> objective materials to help convince my (very pro-Microsoft) coworker
>>>> >> and our boss that LAMP stack is a VERY viable alternative to other
>>>> >> proprietary platforms.
>>>> >
>>>> > Facebook is implemented in PHP.
>>>> >
>>>> Is that a recommendation or a dis-recommendation?
>>>
>>> Well Facebook is certainly an enterprise operation and is very
>>> profitable, which suggest that PHP is not a "toy". Facebook has a huge
>>> user base and seems to manage quite well. This suggests that LAMP
>>> servers scale well.
>>
>> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
>> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
>> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
>>
>>
> The American solution. Throw money and hardware at sub standard software
> ? :-)
>
>>
>
>
Hardware is cheap. Americans use cost-effective methods.
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex(at)attglobal(dot)net
==================
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180694 is a reply to message #180690] |
Sun, 10 March 2013 20:59 |
Christoph Becker
Messages: 91
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
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Member |
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Arno Welzel wrote:
> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
Apparently it is not that irrelevant; otherwise they wouldn't have
developed HipHop.
--
Christoph M. Becker
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180728 is a reply to message #180694] |
Thu, 14 March 2013 19:15 |
Arno Welzel
Messages: 317
Registered: October 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Christoph Becker, 2013-03-10 21:59:
> Arno Welzel wrote:
>
>> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
>> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
>> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
>
> Apparently it is not that irrelevant; otherwise they wouldn't have
> developed HipHop.
Indeed - Facebook does not use "native" PHP - instead they compile
everything from PHP to C++ and then to native machine code ;-)
--
Arno Welzel
http://arnowelzel.de
http://de-rec-fahrrad.de
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| Re: Why PHP? [message #180729 is a reply to message #180728] |
Thu, 14 March 2013 22:50 |
M. Strobel
Messages: 386
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Am 14.03.2013 20:15, schrieb Arno Welzel:
> Christoph Becker, 2013-03-10 21:59:
>
>> Arno Welzel wrote:
>>
>>> Well - Facebook has enough money to run *many* servers. I think in this
>>> case it is nearly irrelevant if they use PHP, C# or whatever - as long
>>> as the backend (database, storage etc.) is capable of handling the load.
>>
>> Apparently it is not that irrelevant; otherwise they wouldn't have
>> developed HipHop.
>
> Indeed - Facebook does not use "native" PHP - instead they compile
> everything from PHP to C++ and then to native machine code ;-)
Such systems are not created over night, and not following the manual.
I am quite sure they tried everything possible, and some impossible ways to deliver
the required performance. This is a long process, everybody has to go through
according to his special needs.
/Str.
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