PHP vs C CGI for small web services

Question

I am creating a small web service that only machines will access, not users who just take the query string and make a few MySQL queries. I decided to write this in PHP because it is simple and easy to write and works well. My boss, however, wants us to write it as CGI in C (using FastCGI) because he says he will be faster and use less memory. I am not very keen on this idea for several reasons:

• The MySQL API for C seems to have a lot more calls than the equivalent PHP, and requires much more error handling.
• String handling in C is somewhat complicated and messy.
• The code in C is almost 3 times longer than the equivalent code in PHP and looks pretty dirty with a lot of error handling.

But this is just my opinion. What other factors need to be considered? Is C the best tool for this job? Or PHP?

Answer 1

Some points about this:

• It’s much easier to implement any service network in PHP rather than C, because PHP is a language designed to work online and C is a common language.
• C is compiled, and this makes it much faster than PHP programs, but if you are really worried about optimization (your program consumes a lot of resources and your equipment is very limited), you can use PHP accelerators that compile the source code ( for example )
• Access to databases is equally punished in both languages, so if your program needs to access the database, it will have the same performance.
• The more important: the boss is the boss :)

Answer 2

If the speed of your (or your boss) is a concern, check out the G-WAN server , which allows you to write C scripts. There are several examples of MySQL in the forum . It will be much faster than FastCGI (which must cross process boundaries through sockets).

Answer 3

IMHO, if most of the processing is done by MySQL, there is no need to write this code in C, because the difference is not significant, but if there is a lot of processing in your code, it makes sense to listen to your boss and make it in C

Answer 4

Both tools are fine. If your boss wants C, made him on C.

Answer 5

You have no choice, because your boss wants it. If you cannot encode in C then just C it.

Answer 6

Ask your boss if it would be better if you used C ++.

• Remind him of the maintenance of the code, and with C ++ you can introduce fewer errors at a price of slightly lower speed.
• Remind him that the “time” necessary to fix or improve the software is “included” in the “runtime” - the time when you will have services, due to a small error.

And try fastcgi ++ . You also have boost and other libraries that can help you make boring stuff faster and focus on WHAT MATTERS.

And if the application performs a lot of calculations, it is recommended to do it in C / C ++.

• Otherwise, remind your boss that, as a rule, regardless of the language, the application will not be slowed down by calculations, and “waiting for resources” - waiting for a disk or waiting for a database are the most common, which happens regardless of language.
• Remind your boss that for speed you can get a 10-60% improvement using apc .

If he just doesn’t want, you have two options:

• quit assignment
• do as he asks you

Why C ++, not C

It is true that with good coding conventions, you can also write managed code in C.

But with C, you still have the verbosity of error handling, as opposed to exceptions, zero-terminated strings, cards, or whatever. I love C far more than C ++, but let him take a look: this is not about the language, but about the mentality of the despot (boss), who needs to deal with arguments and learn to listen to his employees.

Answer 7

Your application is most likely related to I / O. Thus, it will not be noticeably faster in C.

Answer 8

shudder ... you must leave the company. The boss should not be allowed to obey the workers ... unless he is also a programmer in the company’s guru :)