4 ms·

Facebook readies Hyper-PHP

38 points by VonGuard 17y ago

More info surfaces on the Facebook rewrite of PHP.

gkoberger 17y ago
While it certainly seems that Facebook will release some sort of PHP compiler tomorrow, this article cited (and linked to) only one (questionable) source. Are there any credible sources talking about this, because this speculation mostly seems to be based on the questionable interview from last month( http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-interne... )
jellisjapan 17y ago
A Hyper-Hypertext Preprocessor...sounds fast...
- Anon84 17y ago
  LudicrousText preprocessor? </Spaceball reference>
  - trin_ 17y ago
    but but we've never actually preprocessed text at ludicrous speed before...
- lanstein 17y ago
  Faster than Hyper-Personal Home Page, anyway.
jacktasia 17y ago
Some other Facebook open source stuff: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php One that I liked a lot: http://phpsh.org/ http://phpsh.org/ It's an interactive shell for php like python's and written in python.
- justinph 17y ago
  That's some serious irony right there.
Zak 17y ago
I have to wonder why they're writing PHP compilers and PHP refactoring tools (in Haskell!) instead of just using something different for their front end.
- sanswork 17y ago
  As a few facebook employees have said they have a lot invested in PHP there so it wouldn't make sense to swap it out.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    It's interesting they haven't extended the language in the same way Fog Creek took VBScript/ASP, wrote a compiler for it and then started improving the language (a.k.a. Wasabi). I suppose PHP already implements practically every language feature you could think of (though the quality often divides the minds to put it lightly), so making it even bigger isn't going to make things better. Or maybe they have and it's kind of got lost in the hype.
  - Zak 17y ago
    With the sort of tech they're working on, a PHP -> something-not-evil compiler seems like a pretty reasonable solution.
    - sanswork 17y ago
      Any sort of automated compiler is certainly going to miss out on a lot of the things that make language X better than PHP though would it not? And you're still talking about a rewrite of all their PHP code which I'm sure is no small feat. You're also ignoring dependencies and such in the form of PHP modules that would have to be redeveloped for the new language. Ensuring your front end developers are just as capable in language X(and handle the retraining/learning curve). Why go through all that trouble when PHP will work just as well for you?
- smokinn 17y ago
  I watched a video (Jeff Hammerbacher maybe? It was a long time ago back when he was still CTO) where the person mentioned that they had already tried to rewrite their frontend once in, I think, Python, but it was such a massive undertaking and would've frozen their product for so long that the project was killed.
CountHackulus 17y ago
I have to wonder why people are so excited about a PHP compiler when there's been an open-source one out that runs on top of the IBM Java JIT for a while. http://www.projectzero.org/ http://www.projectzero.org/
- gojomo 17y ago
  There's also Quercus from the Resin folks: http://quercus.caucho.com/ http://quercus.caucho.com/
- pvg 17y ago
  Chances are because this is likely to be faster and more compatible. I don't know how what the performance of the IBM one is like but the Quercus pages say "Performance is 4x mod_php and is comparable with PHP accelerator performance.". In other words, about as fast as PHP.
- pbiggar 17y ago
  Yeah, this irks me slightly. No-one gave a crap about phc, but now Facebook is writing a PHP compiler its all over reddit and HN.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Project Zero isn't open source. "This community is an experiment in a new way to build commercial software, an approach we are calling Community-Driven Commercial Development. Community-Driven means that we want feedback, insight, suggestions, criticism, and dialogs with you, the users of Project Zero. This interaction will yield a better solution that targets the problems you have and a technology that truly delivers on its objectives. Commercial means that this is not an open source project. We are still building commercial software here, as the licensing makes clear, but we are doing it in a more transparent fashion." http://www.projectzero.org/about/ http://www.projectzero.org/about/

38 points by VonGuard 17y ago

More info surfaces on the Facebook rewrite of PHP.

While it certainly seems that Facebook will release some sort of PHP compiler tomorrow, this article cited (and linked to) only one (questionable) source. Are there any credible sources talking about this, because this speculation mostly seems to be based on the questionable interview from last month( http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-interne... )

jellisjapan 17y ago

A Hyper-Hypertext Preprocessor...sounds fast...

Anon84 17y ago
LudicrousText preprocessor? </Spaceball reference>
- trin_ 17y ago
  but but we've never actually preprocessed text at ludicrous speed before...
lanstein 17y ago
Faster than Hyper-Personal Home Page, anyway.

jacktasia 17y ago

Some other Facebook open source stuff: http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php One that I liked a lot: http://phpsh.org/ http://phpsh.org/ It's an interactive shell for php like python's and written in python.

justinph 17y ago
That's some serious irony right there.

Zak 17y ago

I have to wonder why they're writing PHP compilers and PHP refactoring tools (in Haskell!) instead of just using something different for their front end.

sanswork 17y ago
As a few facebook employees have said they have a lot invested in PHP there so it wouldn't make sense to swap it out.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  It's interesting they haven't extended the language in the same way Fog Creek took VBScript/ASP, wrote a compiler for it and then started improving the language (a.k.a. Wasabi). I suppose PHP already implements practically every language feature you could think of (though the quality often divides the minds to put it lightly), so making it even bigger isn't going to make things better. Or maybe they have and it's kind of got lost in the hype.
- Zak 17y ago
  With the sort of tech they're working on, a PHP -> something-not-evil compiler seems like a pretty reasonable solution.
  - sanswork 17y ago
    Any sort of automated compiler is certainly going to miss out on a lot of the things that make language X better than PHP though would it not? And you're still talking about a rewrite of all their PHP code which I'm sure is no small feat. You're also ignoring dependencies and such in the form of PHP modules that would have to be redeveloped for the new language. Ensuring your front end developers are just as capable in language X(and handle the retraining/learning curve). Why go through all that trouble when PHP will work just as well for you?
smokinn 17y ago
I watched a video (Jeff Hammerbacher maybe? It was a long time ago back when he was still CTO) where the person mentioned that they had already tried to rewrite their frontend once in, I think, Python, but it was such a massive undertaking and would've frozen their product for so long that the project was killed.

CountHackulus 17y ago

I have to wonder why people are so excited about a PHP compiler when there's been an open-source one out that runs on top of the IBM Java JIT for a while. http://www.projectzero.org/ http://www.projectzero.org/

gojomo 17y ago
There's also Quercus from the Resin folks: http://quercus.caucho.com/ http://quercus.caucho.com/
pvg 17y ago
Chances are because this is likely to be faster and more compatible. I don't know how what the performance of the IBM one is like but the Quercus pages say "Performance is 4x mod_php and is comparable with PHP accelerator performance.". In other words, about as fast as PHP.
pbiggar 17y ago
Yeah, this irks me slightly. No-one gave a crap about phc, but now Facebook is writing a PHP compiler its all over reddit and HN.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Project Zero isn't open source. "This community is an experiment in a new way to build commercial software, an approach we are calling Community-Driven Commercial Development. Community-Driven means that we want feedback, insight, suggestions, criticism, and dialogs with you, the users of Project Zero. This interaction will yield a better solution that targets the problems you have and a technology that truly delivers on its objectives. Commercial means that this is not an open source project. We are still building commercial software here, as the licensing makes clear, but we are doing it in a more transparent fashion." http://www.projectzero.org/about/ http://www.projectzero.org/about/