HipHop PHP Compiler

ETbyrne · 02-02-2010, 10:41 PM

I assume you guys have heard about it? If not then here you go:
> http://developers.facebook.com/news....og=1&story=358

It's not really a PHP compiler, but it turns PHP into C code and then compiles that. If successful, this could really be the death call of many other server-side web languages.

adamdecaf · 02-02-2010, 10:54 PM

Did you happen to see a link to download the code? The project looks neat, but I don't think it will catch on.

ETbyrne · 02-02-2010, 11:10 PM

I haven't seen any download link yet. I don't think they have posted it yet. I think it will catch on if it's as good as they say it is. There was quite a buzz about it earlier today on twitter.

ryanmr · 02-03-2010, 02:38 AM

I read about it on the Facebook Developers blog. It is taking PHP source code, inspecting it, transforming into optimized C++ code and then compiling it. I don't think it is doing it "Just in Time". I think it seems like a step you do upon deployment.

I'm really interested in seeing this specially optimized c++ source code.

Village Idiot · 02-03-2010, 02:39 AM

I'm skeptical about exactly how well it will work. Too early to make any real predictions though.

Enfernikus · 02-03-2010, 02:40 AM

It isn't going to change anything for the daily developer but for the websites that take millions upon millions of hits this could represent a drastic change in resource management.

Village Idiot · 02-03-2010, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enfernikus

It isn't going to change anything for the daily developer but for the websites that take millions upon millions of hits this could represent a drastic change in resource management.

-Disregard-

Village Idiot · 02-03-2010, 02:45 AM

After reading though it again, a few of my concerns are lifted. I did not realize that face book had been making this and that they have been using it. Disregard my previous posts.

Enfernikus · 02-03-2010, 10:21 PM

I've let my coworkers know about this. We're all waiting with great anticipation for a beta release. Right now we are sort of using PHP as glue code but if this works as expect it would greatly expand development as most of our guys are PHP developers ( obviously any good developer can switch languages rather quickly but every language has their quirks ). Especially with the outward facing API system.

ETbyrne · 02-04-2010, 05:40 PM

They say eval won't work with it, which is actually not a bad thing, but I'm wondering what else isn't supported just yet.

sketchMedia · 02-04-2010, 11:17 PM

1. Eval
2. create_function
3. preg_replace when using /e

Its all in this: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4409735
(about 22 mins in)

As far as I can tell, it doesnt work with Apache (they have written their own server, for whatever reason), but they say they hope to bring support for it.

Another upside is that it does mean that you can sell PHP scripts without the extra expense of a PHP obfuscator

adamdecaf · 02-05-2010, 12:28 AM

If I remember correctly, they wrote Tornado which is a web server.

ETbyrne · 02-05-2010, 03:20 AM

What exactly does the /e flag do? I can't recall ever using it.

@adam, yes they did create tornado.

sketchMedia · 02-05-2010, 09:21 AM

The 'e' modifier allows you to have executable code within your replace (hence why its closely related to eval())

PHP Code:


			
$text = 'This cheese was well expensive! It cost about £30';
echo preg_replace('/([ewc]+?)/e', "strtoupper(\\1)", $text);

//result This ChEEsE Was WEll ExpEnsivE! It Cost about 30