It’s times like these that I wish someone just told the reporter that PHP is a programming language for web development that has a larger marketshare than Java J2EE and Microsoft dotNet combined:

[Web 2.0 technologies] also mean applications can be built much more quickly, says Mr Boloker. He is a big fan of PHP, an open-source scripting language which makes building mashups even easier. Originating in Greenland, PHP is now managed by an Israeli company called Zend.
—Sydney Morning Herald

I didn’t realize that Rasmus wasn’t in Canada when he wrote PHP and that Cupertino is now in Israel.

Good to know.

Oh yeah, it’s nice that they’re allowed to use Apple Macintoshes in IBM, I didn’t know they’re so generous. Will they be taking his away with the Intel switch?

Other than that hilarity, thank you Dave Boloker for plugging PHP. Now I can go around saying that the former chief of Java Technologies at IBM Software Group is a “big fan of PHP.”

Rock on.

I don’t read php-internals anymore because I’m partial to getting work done, but there was an interesting question the dealmac developer posted. Basically dealmac, like my current employer, has a large array structure in a PHP file somewhere that is included on every page. It’s abusing memory.

Brian then notices that if you use var_export()(a function I keep forgetting exists), he was able to cut the memory usage from 5MB to 1.2MB. Storing it serialized reduced the memory usage to 20% but with double to load time performance penalty.

How could a 300K file use up so much space in memory?

The way you answer this is to use vld to make the Zend Engine your bitch.

[The answer after the jump.]Continue reading →