IW-CgDevTools vs PHP

[scoluccia]

Hi,
this is a reflection and I'd like to give a moral support from you
I'm using intraweb/CGDevtools since one year with several small project, but this tecnology doesn't like to my boss (ex PHP developer) the first reason he thinks that is not a scalable system and for every session there are in memory all the client objects and his state and this is not the right mode to use the HTTP protocoll

He says there are a lot of other reason to pass to PHP for instance there are a lot of free library and a huge of developer community.

Do you have some valid reason to defence delphi/intraweb, apart from the fact of using the language Delphi?

[Alexander Bulei]

Hi scoluccia,

Do you have some valid reason to defence delphi/intraweb, apart from the fact of using the language Delphi?

As you know, our components are working over intraweb system,
which renders and controls the interaction of client -> server -> client.

Best Regards.

[Jorge Sousa]

Hi

Interesting post

PHP also takes memory per session,

but you're right, in Intraweb you've all controls that occupy memory, because there is also an implicit pascal to html/javascript/css translation, and also requires requests to the server,

These are ajax capable web applications, not single page applications.

But if you know how to code the javascript for changing html elements, like changing texts, colors, etc... you can do this with cgdevtools, through the .Script of each event, like JQButton.JQButtonsOptions.OnClick.Script. In design-time you even have a intellisense editor

You can use also have IW session pooling, and very important...

You don't have to be a web designer to make all the html, css and script, as you have to do for PHP, and I can assure you that all this can be very annoying with all cross browser issues.

and you can overcome the extra memory size, compiling to 64 bits, because physical memory is cheap.

you can also have load balancing software or hardware, also in Intraweb.

also in PHP, if you want to take advantage of your existing Pascal code, you've to link PHP through dlls, if you still stick to Windows, i don't know for sure if you can do that in PHP for Windows, but i believe it can.

About not being scalable, what do you mean? Does it mean that it can't grows? if yes, why?

[scoluccia]

Hi Jorge, thanks foe your answer

Hi

Interesting post

About not being scalable, what do you mean? Does it mean that it can't grows? if yes, why?

I mean if it grows with 3000 users I think that IW technology is heavier than PHP because the first is statefull and the other is stateless, so with IW the server has in memory 3000 instance of the objects thread and if there is a bug in the isapi all the thread can be stopped

[Jorge Sousa]

Hi Scollucia

About

I mean if it grows with 3000 users I think that IW technology is heavier than PHP because

Ok, yes, IW techonology is heavier because it has the session controls in memory, i recall you again that you can have a pool of session, and yes, is statefull, but this fact, doesn't have to be necessarily a bad thing.

so with IW the server has in memory 3000 instance of the objects thread and if there is a bug in the isapi all the thread can be stopped

About the bug, depends on the bug to make stop all the application and all threads, if this can heapens it's bad.

But if you have many users, you should have a web garden, ie, more than one process loading it's copy of the isapi dlls,

And if you have even more users, a web farm using more than one machine.

I'm not defending or accusing Intraweb, it is what it is.

I could spend a lot wriring about by own ideas, but thats anotther story

[George]

Hello!

State support is one of most advantages for web applications.
How much memory session will consume is up to developer (depends on objects that you store in session).
Each time when you open PHP based page, php loads and compile physical file from hard drive.
As you know, memory works dramatically faster, so if you can avoid HDD load it's brilliant (DRAM are cheaper and faster then SSDs).
If your boss don't get this, well...
If PHP use caching then same questions with memory usage arise.

Main question is what you developing.
Delphi provide rich possibilities for different purposes.
For example, you even can implement PHP-like stateless web server if you need (you must be good in dephi+html+css+js).
IW provide additional layer of possibilities, you can use content handlers for stateless pages and code html as you need,
IW or CG will track callbacks, so you able implement server side reaction.

Why i like CG - it provide additional layer of possibilities, firstly improve visuals and experience for end users.
In addition, CG provide helpful methods that save time.

And one last thing - IW and CG are tools mainly for those who not html+css+js expert, like most delphi developers.
In same time it's possible to use IW+CG for low level web app development.
Web development is other world with own rules and problems.

[Jorge Sousa]

Hello

Wise words George

Thank you!