This article compares PHP to other scripting languages such as JSP, ASP and Cold Fusion and describes its strenghts and weaknesses as compared to these other languages.

Can't decide whether to use PHP scripts, Perl CGIs, or Java servlets for your next Web development project This article will help you decide by providing a side-by-side comparison of the functioning source code of all three languages

The recent benchmarking spree of PhpLib, ADODB, PEAR DB, Metabase and Native MySQL has brought more questions up how to to design fast and powerful class libraries in PHP. This short article describes how to design a fast and powerful class libraries in PHP.

PEAR is the standard library of PHP code for PHP4. Tutorials and documentation on PEAR can be found here.

This article presents a compilation of all available PHP debuggers and caches, with benchmarks.

The main issues discussed in this article about PHP versus Perl are (1) Perl does not separate code from HTML (2) mod_perl is a fine hack, but still a hack (3) and performance.

A comparison of PHP of Cold Fusion by Mike Sheldon. It's interesting to note that Allaire is moving strongly toward the Java platform, and reports are that CF 5.0 will be an abstraction layer on a Java Servlet engine. Allaire is also very definitely focusing on the Enterprise market, and IMHO is not paying much attention to the "Pro" market anymore. While the profit margins are definitely better in the Enterprise market, there's a whole ton more volume in the rest of the market, which is ripe for PHP to dominate.

PHP is now the most popular module for the Apache server, currently running on about two million Web sites. This article discusses a short history, what to look for in a scripting engine, advantages and disadvantages of PHP, and more.

According to Symantec AntiVirus Research Center, "PHP.Pirus is the first virus written in PHP, a server-side scripting language used for dynamic Web page generation. The virus searches for .php and .htm files and inserts code to call itself. The virus executes only on servers with PHP interpreters. This virus cannot be contracted by simply visiting an infected Web page." The Web page offers technical description and how to remove the virus.

A survey and discussion of how popular PHP, JSP, ASP, and CFM scripting languages are by counting search engine URLs.

This article takes a quick look at PHP4's new features. Some of the issues discussed include: the difference between PHP3 and PHP4, Sessions, Output Buffering, COM support on Windows, Java support, and more.

PHP's lack of a standard database API makes switching databases difficult and costly once an application has been written. For example, if you write a program that uses a MySQL database on the back end, and you want to modify that program so that it uses a Sybase database, you'll most likely spend hours modifying the code. This article, along with sample codes, discusses possible solutions.

One of the most important ideas in creating scalable Web sites is to decompose our programs into more modular Web services. Our Web pages will no longer read a database, process the business logic and spew out HTML. Instead we will subdivide our pages into multiple sections, and render each section by calling different Web services. In this way we spread the CPU load across multiple servers. This article shows you how to implement these Web services using XML-RPC and PHP.

This article by John Lim discusses the advantages PHP has over ASP. It gives 7 reasons: 1. Speed, speed, speed, 2. Better memory management, 3. No Hidden Costs with PHP, 4. MySQL makes it cooler, 5. Closer to Java/C++ Style of Programming, 6. No Show Stopper Bugs, and 7. Cross Platform Migration Strategy.

This article takes a brief look at PHP4/Zend technology. It discusses such issues as architecture and functionality, PHP3 vs PHP4, pros and cons of PHP, etc.

Being a good PHP hacker isn't just about writing single line solutions to complex problems. For example, web gurus know that speed of coding is much more important than speed of code. This article looks at techniques that can help you become a better PHP hacker. It assumes that you have a basic knowledge of PHP and databases.

PHP 4.0 makes its debut. The author puts PHP 4 through its paces on one of the busiest Web sites around--Linux Today--and what his benchmarking shows will amaze you: PHP 4.0 is an amazingly fast tool that can optimize any Web site.

In this article, Tobias Ratschiller (who runs http://phpwizard.net) explains what PHP is, what it can do, and where it stands compared to other programming and scripting languages.

Zope isn't the only Open Source site-management tool out there. Brian Jepson introduces Midgard. Main topics include: Installing Midgard, Building a Simple Site with Midgard, Defining Styles for Your Site, Creating the Host, Creating Content, Updating the Home Page, and Data Collections.

The release of PHP 4.0, the long-awaited, next generation of the popular Web scripting language, is just around the corner. The most recent version, release candidate 1, is stable and ready to take over PHP 3.0's role in Web application development. The release takes PHP to new levels, with increased performance, more features, and cleaner syntax.