php vs python for bh apps

What do guys think? I like python very much but php has curl which makes it so easy to build scrapers and account creators. Does python have something like that?

In my opinion, PHP > Python due to it's portability. You can buy hosting for a cent that has full PHP/Curl support, but few that will support Python scripts. Also better manual (php.net), better examples and good community support The hosting point was simply that you can upload your scrapers to multiple hosting accounts, so more IPs.

aliskorn said:

What do guys think? I like python very much but php has curl which makes it so easy to build scrapers and account creators. Does python have something like that?

Click to expand...

In Python you can use PyCurl.

Just prefer python, so much powerfull....BUT I just started perl, and it's overpowered too, and many more packages than python.

Python is better better due to it's short code. It also forces you to write a better code. It has a huge amount of packeges that are well-coded and it's faster than php

I've seen a lot of PHP guys go on about curl, giving the impression that it's only available in PHP. But in reality it's a language independent library written in C.

Oh and the curl website, has the following in the "1.3 What is curl not?" FAQ section:

Curl is not a PHP tool, even though it works perfectly well when used from or with PHP (when using the PHP/CURL module).

Click to expand...

I do agree that there are less hosts that support Python out of the box. But that's where a VPS comes into play, it's always better to have greater control of the environment then being a guest.

+1 for python and pycurl. And add in a dose of BeautifulSoup.

I'm not trying to start a religious war, but python is designed from the ground up to be a cohesive and extremely well thought-out language (from the 'formal languages' perspective). Python was OO from the outset, although using that paradigm isn't required.

Keep in mind that PHP is not a general purpose programming language -- it is designed for web scripting. It's simply not as powerful, or as well suited for general purpose programming, as perl, python, C, etc... It is, however, wonderfully suited for web programming.

As far as debugging environments go, Python's is far superior. Python's support for testing, especially automated regression testing, blows away PHP as well.

If I were designing large-scale systems that have to be maintained (and this is exactly what I do), I'd choose Python. I can't imagine developing anything with even moderate complexity with PHP, although people do it all the time.

As is usually the case with languages, there is no right answer.

--Ma

PHP development is much faster.

The right language is the one that you know the best. Python is technically superior and comes with a much more comprehensive, thoroughly tested standard library for doing all kinds of cool stuff. However there are way more PHP developers out there, so if you're going to be getting other people to modify the code, PHP could be the way to go.

stargazerrrrr said:

Python is better better due to it's short code. It also forces you to write a better code.

Click to expand...

Python forces you to write better code? No I don't think so. From what I've seen in tutorials python is a very forgiving language with syntax so if anything it would encourage you to write sloppy code compared to something like C which demands tight coding due to it's strict syntax.

But having said that I'm aware of the good reputation python has and it's used by a lot of people doing reverse engineering and very much preferred by people who can write their own code very fast for things like scraping and sys admin. Not trying to bash python here but what you said contradicts what I've seen in basic tutorials.

PHP Is far way the best portable language there is currently out there. But hey; its all by the user standard, so decide for yourself ;-)

If i have to choose one of them , then I will definitely go with php as you can get lots of library in php and you will get lots of people to help in various forums too

Hmm... Whatever happened to pick the right tool for the job?

-HL