[mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...

[Puneet Kishor]

Jessica,

No offense meant to either you or anyone else. The appropriateness of PHP
vs. CF as it relates to Mapserver is a very valid point for discussion on
this list. As I said below, at this time PHP is a better fit for
Mapscript-ing Mapserver.

A pure PHP vs. CF discussion is not only tiring but also boring. The CF
folks bad-mouth PHP, and the PHP-folks bad-mouth CF. Most of the times most
of them advocating one have never used the other. 

Personally, I love CF but I will never personally buy it... my work does,
and my employer's clients do. I am relatively new to PHP, but I appreciate
it. Again, personally I will never use it to create a web-site because to
me, but some of my employer's clients use it. 

PHP is the open-source replacement for CF... there is no fun in learning it.
The real pot-of-gold for me is Perl because with it I can do everything the
CF or PHP can do, but I can also do what C or shell scripting can do. And, I
can run it on just about any conceivable platform. I think I have a long way
to go before I get fluent in Perl.

In any case, I hope you now have enough info to make your Mapserver related
decisions. And if you don't, please ask again.

Good luck,

pk/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jessica Anderson [mailto:janderson at pacificdataservices.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 1:01 PM
> To: 'Puneet Kishor'
> Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: RE: [mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...
> 
> 
> Besides the point of whether it is suppose to be in this 
> thread or not I
> certainly appreciate everyone's input and points of view.
> 
> Jessica
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Puneet Kishor [mailto:pkishor at geoanalytics.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 8:14 AM
> To: 'janderson at PacificDataServices.com';
> mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: RE: [mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...
> 
> 
> this is a ridiculous thread... this is a mapserver list, not 
> a PHP v. CF
> list. There are tons of lists out there with folks duking it 
> out re which
> religion is better... usually, anyone who has used one over 
> the other will
> profess for that to be better. The truth is there is no clear 
> answer (except
> perhaps that Perl is better than all of them :-) )
> 
> That said, here are some points with specific interest to 
> Mapserver (I have
> used CF for 7 years, and PHP for 2, so I guess I can talk 
> with some clarity
> on this issue) --
> 
> 1. CF does not have support for Mapscript at this point, 
> while PHP does.
> However, one could use CF with Mapserver as a CGI. I have sent you an
> earlier email showing you how this can be done using CFHTTP.
> 
> 2. PHP's Mapscript support is good, but only if you are lucky 
> enough to have
> it work for you. After several weeks of trying I am still 
> struggling to even
> get PHP/Mapscript compile for me or run for me on MacOS X or 
> on Windows
> because of some reason or the other. Otoh, it runs fine on 
> the RH box I am
> using for developing a Mapserver site. I keep on trying to 
> get PHP/Mapscript
> to compile no MacOS X because that is what I _want_ to do, 
> not what I _need_
> to do... thank god.
> 
> 3. No matter what anyone says, CF is by far the easiest and quickest
> environment for developing db driven web applications. Of course, this
> statement will not hold true for someone who has been using 
> PHP for a long
> time but has never used CF. That said, CF's db abstraction, 
> session and
> server variable management, administration console, and debugging
> capabilities simply blow PHP out of the water. Of course, you 
> pay for it...
> a CF enterprise install is about $4k. But most folks would do 
> as well with a
> CF prof. install which is about $1200. CF express is free but 
> is available
> only on Win. CF will run, however, on most popular platforms out there
> including Linux.
> 
> 4. The argument that PHP is free is absolutely merit-less. 
> You should use a
> program because it does your work for you, or because you 
> _have_ to use it
> for some reason or the other. Mapserver is a great program 
> NOT because it is
> free but because it is a great program for doing what it does. Even at
> $10,000 an install Mapserver would be better than ArcIMS, afaiac.
> 
> All that said, if you want complete control developing a 
> Mapserver-driven
> application with Mapscript support, I would urge you to 
> choose either Perl
> or PHP, because that support does not exist for CF. case closed.
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jessica Anderson [mailto:janderson at PacificDataServices.com]
> > Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 10:42 AM
> > To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> > Subject: [mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...
> >
> >
> > Could anyone explain how php would be more useful than cold
> > fusion or the
> > advantages of using php?
> >
> > Jessica Anderson
> > Pacific Data Services
> > PH. (209) 524-2479
> > FAX. (209) 524-0282
> >
>