Re: HipHop for PHP

[MattLavinder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

OK- this brings up an interesting point.  How could IBM convince Facebook
(or anyone using the LAMP stack) to switch to Power and choose IBM i over
AIX/Linux ?  Personally, I think that is the major problem IBM i faces.
While IBM i having MySQL and PHP are great things, it sort of causes the
system to start loosing its identity.  Not sure Facebook would care that
there's an integrated databases or all the other things the faithful think
make IBM i great.  If it turns out the only way to get someone to use IBM i
is to pay them...then we have a problem.

Matt


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  |Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>                                                                                                            |
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  |"Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries" <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>                                                                                          |
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  |02/09/2010 09:36 AM                                                                                                                               |
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  |Re: [WEB400] HipHop for PHP                                                                                                                       |
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I agree with that statement to an extent.  The reality is that sometimes
performance isn't as big of an issue (i.e. if you have few web site hits)
but sometimes microseconds turn into big issues.  The nice thing about
languages like PHP is that they are used by both big and small businesses,
and the big businesses put it through the wringer, and subsequently the
smaller guys get the performance that the bigger guys worked through.  If I
had to make a guess I would say that FaceBook couldn't run on the PHP of 6
years ago without having an incredibly huge server farm.

Here's an idea: IBM should work with Facebook to get them running Zend+PHP
on an IBMi and work out a deal where they get similar advertising that Sun
Microsystems got when eBay was running on their infrastructure.  Would be
excellent advertising!

Aaron Bartell


On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:20 AM, <MattLavinder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> No major performance issues.  If you could publish a list here of common
> performance "gotchas" that would be helpful.
>
> Let me clarify my thinking.  You will ALWAYS have people that have
> convinced themselves that scripting languages are inferior.   They count
> microseconds and point to time differences that our minds can't even
> perceive.  Misconceptions and bias are probably two of the toughest thing
> to deal with.  Anything that makes THAT task easier is good in my book.
In
> the end, the performance boost HipHop could provide might be secondary to
> boost in perception.
> .
> Matt
>
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>  |02/08/2010 04:49 PM
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>  |Re: [WEB400] HipHop for PHP
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> Hi Matt,
>
> Yes, Zend is watching :-)
>
> Weâre glad to see Facebook publicly acknowledging PHPâs high
productivity,
> which far surpasses that of Java and .NET. Facebook reports that they now
> serve 400 billion(!) PHP-based web pages every month.
>
> We will learn what HipHop concepts apply to the broad PHP community (Not
> just IBM i) and what are specific to Facebook. We believe it is important
> to continue to fold in new ideas and innovations into the community-based
> runtime. We have always adapted to changes within the PHP runtime,
whether
> these changes were made by us or by the community and will be glad to
> continue doing so.
>
> Zend will continue to support PHP and the broad PHP community in multiple
> ways including leading the Zend Framework project, contributing to
multiple
> PHP projects and driving the Eclipse PDT effort.
>
> I would caution anyone from believing this is a magic bullet of any sort.
> Please check out what the author of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf, had to say about
> the subject:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rasmus-lerdorf-php-hiphop-facebook.php
> Matt, do you have specific issues about performance using the new Zend
> Server beta or are you just generally concerned?
>
> Please share.  Hope this helps!
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike
>
> mike.p@xxxxxxxx   Cell: (408)679-1011    Office: (815)722-3454
>
> Zend Server for IBM i Beta avilable at
> http://www.zend.com/en/products/server/zend-server-5-new-ibmi
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of MattLavinder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 1:17 PM
> To: web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [WEB400] HipHop for PHP
>
>
> For those who haven't heard, Facebook (believe it or not) announced they
> are going to open source a product called HipHip for PHP.   Here is part
of
> the announcement to show why you should care:
>
> <snip>
> Today Iâm excited to share the project a small team of amazing people and
I
> have been working on for the past two years; HipHop for PHP. With HipHop
> weâve reduced the CPU usage on our Web servers on average by about fifty
> percent, depending on the page. Less CPU means fewer servers, which means
> less overhead. This project has had a tremendous impact on Facebook. We
> feel the Web at large can benefit from HipHop, so we are releasing it as
> open source this evening in hope that it brings a new focus toward
scaling
> large complex websites with PHP. While HipHop has shown us incredible
> results, itâs certainly not complete and you should be comfortable with
> beta software before trying it out.
>
> HipHop for PHP isnât technically a compiler itself. Rather it is a source
> code transformer. HipHop programmatically transforms your PHP source code
> into highly optimized C++ and then uses g++ to compile it. HipHop
executes
> the source code in a semantically equivalent manner and sacrifices some
> rarely used features â such as eval() â in exchange for improved
> performance. HipHop includes a code transformer, a reimplementation of
> PHPâs runtime system, and a rewrite of many common PHP Extensions to take
> advantage of these performance optimizations.
> </snip>
>
> While reducing number of servers is irrelevant to us IBM i folks, better
> performance certainly is not.  I get excited at the idea of PHP running
at
> native speeds. This is an incredibly interesting idea and probably
relevant
> to every IBM i shop using PHP.  I sure hope Zend is paying attention to
> this.  I'd love to see some real world examples of how much of an impact
> this can actually have on performance.  If it is as significant the
> announcement says, I expect to see HipHop eventually implemented into a
> future release of Zend Server. ;)
>
> Matt
>
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