Who The fuck said developing in C++ takes more time and I am really frustrated that no one has contradicted it. When it comes to a desktop app you have c++ with QT library and development time is almost 75 % lower than in java and .net, performance is super fast yielding about 80% increase in performance (tested personally). .net is so slow (development time and performance) and java can be compared to the speed of a tortoise. In terms of portability you can run it on Linux , Mac , Windows , to mobiles running symbian , android (necessitas) , harmattan , Embedded Linux , Maemo, MeeGo , Windows CE, Mobile , Wayland , iPhone (experimental) , webOS (experimental) , BlackBerry , Amazon Kindle DX (experimental). After all this the industry runs behind java and .net.
In a Web Development platform, it is the library that matters. Although I dont have personal experience with wt it sounds good enough. AND WHY THE HECK DOES ANYONE WANT TO PLAY WITH POINTERS AND C ARRAYS WHEN YOU HAVE GOOD CLASSES IN A LIBRARY. EITHER LEARN STUFF AND SPEAK OR DONT.
IF YOU WANT TO USE POINTERS IN AN OBJECT ORIENTED FRAMEWORK, THEN YOU REALLY NEED IT. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HOW PHP PROGRAMMERS PLAY WITH POINTER WHEN THEY WANT IT. For designing the visuals of a webpage, as far as I have seen wt supports css_file loading.AND WHEN YOU SAY WT WAS MODELLED ON QT, I DONT THINK THEY MEAN IT. ALL IT MEANS IS THAT THEY HAVE GIVEN SIMILIAR NAMES TO CLASSES AS COMPARED TO QT SO AS TO EASILY BRIDGE THE QT PROGRAMMERS LIKE WWidget IN PLACE OF QWidget.
Also distribution of work and proper coordination along with management and the right set of tools are available for C++ considering its age.No one says, Dont learn HTML , PHP etc.. Understand how it works, and harness the maximum powerSo Learn and speak. Dont blabber.

It looks like that the discussion diverged a little bith from the original topic... so I am going to add some fuel to this fire :¬)Spoiler: I am *both* a C++ and Perl developer (and I love both... but for different things).I believe that, the coice between PHP/scripting and C++:- For a company depends mainly on what you need to do, the time that you have, the competencies that you have and the code that you can reuse.- For an individual on the personal taste.I am going to comment only on the first one because, the fact that someone decides to write his own blog/tools/whatever during his spare time in language X could be driven just by personal reasons (for instance, learning X is a very good one).Let's go back to my first point:- What you need to do: if the application is really just I/O bound or it is doing almost no computation at all, as a thin layer between the DB and the UI, you can do that in a scripting language if this simplify you life (aka: less code to write, less code to test, less code to review...). If the application is computational intensive and there is not a specialized scripting/domain specific language available (e.g., Perl for RegExp), you should go for C++ (or whatever).- The time that you have: scripting languages provide high-level abstraction and this usually means less code to be written, tested, etc. Using C++ could mean that you need to write a lot of code for things that can be trivially addressed in a scripting language.- The competencies that you have: if in your company, everyone ignores how to program C++, just don't use it. Use whatever thing you know. You can invest time and money in learning new programming languages but it is unlikely that after a 3 days crash course in C++ you can call yourself a C++ programmer. If you need C++ in your project: hire C++ programmers if you do not have in your company.- The code that you can reuse: in the majority of the cases, you do not write an application from scratch, you use you own framework, libraries, etc. How much did they cost to you? Can you afford the cost of throwing away everything to start doing everything in another language from scratch?
Of course, FB has enough people/money to throw away everything and start from scratch: can you?-- Francesco

What about Google's 500k+ servers compared to FB's current 60k?

Good things

PLEASE READ THIS ONE:
Why not having some beers on Saturday (6th feb) at
Sint-Goriksplein 23, 1000 Brussel, Belgium and discuss about how to build an european book of faces with wt etc (http://www.babelengine.org email: mobi at mobiphil.com)?

I'm a C++ programmer and I fart alot, 1000:1 compared to an everage PHP programmer. This should be taken into account also.

It would definitely save CO2 from servers, but
less CO2 means:
-less food for plants
-lack of global warming (someone please turn up the heat... it's global cooling...)
-lack of subjects for the enviro-nuts
...although it would all be balanced by the 65000 tons of CO2 that would be released in the process of producing and brewing coffee so that the programmers can re-code :)

thanks for this nice article.

Why not use Assembly? Or develop a dedicated hardware architecture...

Important to say that PHP allows you to easily write native extensions in C/C++, and Facebook does it a lot. Using PHP just to call the C/C++ routines.

Wikipedia is also written in PHP. What do you say about that?

Servers don't output CO2. Fossil fuel power plants do. So either go nuclear or use reusable energy. I'm not saying you shouldn't make things more efficient, but that doesn't solve anything in the long run when still burning coal, oil or gas. So get your priorities right.

a good example of a commonly used web application is called World of Warcraft. Instead of a PHP intrepreter, they use C++. The difference of course is that, instead of the website rendering text, it renders binary to it's browser -- in the form of a game client. The amount of database activity and computational algorithms is far more than facebook every will be. For PHP and Ruby zealots to say "PHP only accounts for 5% of the overhead" is baseless. It's not just "glue" -- its the core of the application. Nobody can ever, ever argue that PHP is comparable to C++ in terms of performance. The 10:1 factor is woefully innacurate; it's more like 1000:1. Go benchmark. And, using compiled SQL scripts instead of on-the-fly SQL is much faster, too. Microsoft SQL with its compiled procedures stands testament to it. C++ with compiled SQL using procedural parameters instead of PHP with ad lib scripts will be a LOT faster. PHP and ad lib scripts is possibly the slowest form of webserver. Its beaten even by VB.net and MSSQL.

actually it would be best for the work if facebook just shut down. it wouldnt even take one overpayed c++ developer to do it and would save the most co2 of all the scenarios discussed here. who need fb anyway?

Old-fashioned ANSI-C scripts (G-WAN Web server) leave PHP in the dust (up to 7,500 times faster).

And they are crash-proof, even on Linux.

[[Comment deleted]]

Why not comparing then the fficiency to plain C language?

Gotta take into account the gas emitted from programmers driving to and from work to write Facebook in C++ etc etc
Changing Facebook from PHP to C++ is quite like saving the planet by dumping your 2 year old sedan and buying a newly manufactured hybrid

You weaving a story out of random opinions, benchmarks and some facts is interesting. You C/C++ programmers wanting to use your beloved too for *everything* will have you become old sages that go read the holy scriptures of C coding on days of worship. If you were doing technical analysis, for instance, you would be much better using C libraries and of course you would have to use C libraries just because thinking about implementing a lot of CPU-intensive algorithms on PHP is laughable.

But when you use PHP as the glue between lots of cached data, I doubt that efficiency is better with C... unless the real reason to be writing this is because you wan to work at facebook and still code C... well, man, life is no about what *you* want... no matter how much you love C... wanna help me patch a kernel next weekend?! *sigh*

I quite agree being against PHP. This langage is particularily bad. About C++, I dont completely agree. I would suggest (just suggestion) trying OCaml over OCsigen. A complex web application such as Facebook should really consider this.

I think you just bunched the panties on the PHP community. Having built C++ web based servers, i can attest that they tend to smoke PHP if written correctly. When I talk to Grail developers and PHP developers about the numbers, they say that lower performance if offset by high developer productivity. I disagree. A QT based framework certainly increases the productivity of a C++ developer.

In one job, i was hired to replace a perl implementation with a C++ implementation. The perl implementation could handle 2000 simultaneous connections. The C++ implementation could handle 40000.

Most of you critical of this article are just clicking your Ruby heals together and wishing for something that is just not true.

This is just plain dumb. Facebook and any site of significant size uses APC or some such to cache compiled versions of each script. Additionally, almost every piece of HTML is cached, so PHP is rarely run at all, much less compiled on the fly.

On top of that, most of what this type of site does is fetching data from a database, so a great deal of logic is actually in the SQL or equivalent, not in PHP.

So...no. And, making up ratios like the 10::1 ratio off the top of your head is the icing on the cake. If you don't know, then leave it out. Making stuff up just turns a ridiculous argument into a laughably stupid one.

Wow, this event has stirred up quite a controversy!

<rant>
First off, I am not a professional web programmer/engineer. I am a professional console game/3d graphics engineer, where C++ tends to shine. I will apologize in advance if I am a bit naive about web technology and strategy, but that said I am not an idiot.

So I have recently began porting my blog from PHP and WordPress to C++. Why? Because I am much more productive in C++. I have not found anything (after much searching) that would lead me to believe that PHP is going to make me more productive (much less 10x more productive)than C++. I am finding the opposite to be true. I was able to get a source code syntax highlighting solution up and running VERY quickly using witty and some linux source c-based library. It probably took me more time to figure out how to do the same thing with the WordPress plugin manager.. Seems to me that this illusion of magic productivity in PHP just boils down to built in API's, memory management, ease of use for green developers, and just plain old developer's choice. All but one are manageable problems for C++.

Case in point:
What is it about scripted languages that prevent buffer overflows that one with C++ can't also achieve given the proper container ? Don't use C++ raw arrays or the C string API's, and instead use a C++ string API designed for the particular patterns/requirements necessary for web development and you shouldn't have any problems.. I will give you that using fatter, web developer friendly C++ API's may erode at C++'s performance advantage, but that to me just reinforces my point that its not the language but the API's commonly in use. So change the API's then..

There is nothing wrong with web development in C++, given that you have developers willing and able to use it. More than likely this is the core issue with C++ - It's just not popular with most web developers because it has this legacy of being difficult. I am just saying that I believe that C++ itself (the language, not the API's) is not as difficult as this legacy would leave you to believe, given the right choices of API's to go along with it.. Yeah C++ has some dirty, quirky issues when you get deep into its bowels, but I have also seen many, many ingenious, powerful things done with it that the language designers never thought of when they designed it.

</rant>

In conclusion, I am not stating that everyone should use C++ as THE web development platform. I think like anything else it should boil down to choice. I am going to choose C++ because it is what I know, and since I will be doing my own site with it I get to make the decision myself.

If I were doing web sites professionally AND I still had a choice, It would still be C++.

Once I get an opportunity to learn and use D (and perhaps get paid for it), I might switch to that. Until that day comes...

mtm

Your analysis is completely wrong. The role PHP plays is not CPU bound, but I/O bound. Therefore, your estimated ratio of 10:1 is way off. If you include time waiting on I/O (network, database queries), the ratio is probably very close to 1:1. And PHP costs a lot less to develop than C++, so using PHP over C++ is a no-brainer here.

i dare say that, while they might save on some servers, i sincerely doubt, when the dust settles in this hypothetical situation, it is anywhere near the factor you suggest. there are a million speed bumps you hit along the way, so its easy enough to make such claims from the comfort of your armchair.

Mate,

You should consider pulling this posting off the net. As you can tell you made a rather large arse out of your self making these baseless assumptions and statements.

If the wt c++ thing is any good you have just given it a very big black eye. As you can see for all the postings. You are point blank wrong on your conclusions.

I'm actually embarrassed for you right now.

This assumes that PHP is responsible for 100% of the overhead for running large scale applications like Facebook. Usually, the overhead in these kinds of applications is in the database or file i/o. The purpose of the 30000+ servers is usually to replicate and cache pages and data.

I think a more realistic view is to assume that PHP would only account for 5% of the overhead. Thus, porting it to C++ would only speed up that 5% by 10, but in the end, it would cost more money and time (and cpu to compile and debug C++) to develop.

Your reference is a shootout of a number of set tests on a single intel chip on a standalone server.

Facebook has a set of php scripts across tens of thousands of servers, possibly with different cpu setups, billions if not trillions of db rows with very large numbers of them being selected per second, and trillions of files to pick from.

So yeah obviously a 100% direct comparison of which you can draw accurate conclusions.

Wow, nice work falsifying data right there.
a) Facebook ain't just one language buddy
b) They already use C++ extensions where additional performance is needed
c) The reason they need so many servers isn't due to the programatic request handling layer
d) IO, data warehousing, database perhaps?
e) sigh.

Another PHP hit job.

For anyone who does not know this: C++ is just more efficient than PHP. End of story. Compared to C++, PHP eats up mass amounts of CPU cycles. C++ is simply more efficient. Yes, it is a much harder language to learn to use efficiently in a short amount of time. Yes, as a whole it is a harder language to code with overall, but it can operate at a level closer to hardware, with less over-head, thus being more efficient on the system as a whole, and being much faster computationally.

You do realise that the entire climate thing is a complete load of bollocks. C'mon are we scientists or not?

A few more things to consider:

1) Facebook recently hired Andrei Alexandrescu.
2) C++ can be an excellent web development language, it's a matter of libraries and developer proficiency. Again, a domain-specific language is going to be "faster" to get started with, but a good architecture in any language is going to trump short-term "slowness of development" in the long run (at least from an engineering point of view).

Let's also consider that a large part of what they'd be doing in the C++ is repeating exactly what they are doing in PHP - how much of a -real- difference are you going to get in efficiency if you generate a web page in C++ vs in PHP? I suppose one could test this on a very basic case, by testing the speed of outputting a web page via C++ or the identical page via PHP echo ...

I've heard that Facebook is working on a PHP to C++ translator to run well-optimized machine code in the end. No idea what the status is or if it's true.

I've also seen talks by the Facebook people who've stated that, although PHP computation is significant, it's only something like 1/3 of the process, so even if they make the PHP part infinitely fast, they're still only going to save 33%.

While I agree that their infrastructure is hacky and inefficient (in many respects), I doubt that it's nearly as bad as what you've estimated.

Hi

This is one of the most stupids post about computer I have ever read. Has the author ever written something like facebook (btw i did see http://www.suvi.org/adrbook/ but on the main subject) If facebook would be implemented in C++ it would probably 1) not exist 2) more expensive (means more trees killed) for production and maintenance 3) and probably be crashing several time because of some implementation faults.

Cheers suvi

I agree with many of the comments, that the I/O is more likely to be a bottleneck than the PHP. Also, the Facebook blog even states that they use C++ for parts of the backend where performance is required.

You do realize the benchmark you used to get 10:1 uses tests that have almost nothing at all to do with presenting a web page, right? Most are pure number crunching. Unless Facebook calculates the digits of Pi everytime it renders a page, that ratio is just completely arbitrary. The biggest bottleneck is most likely database queries, which really has nothing to do with the language you are using.

In case somebody actually takes this serious, here's some stuff to factor in:
- rewriting Facebook in C++ takes time and resources (also CO2)
- writing a new app in C++ usually takes more resources than writing it in PHP (in PHP, computer does some stuff that C++ programmers have to do manually, like memory management)
- it's quite possible to write inefficient code in C++ as well
- the idea of "C++ is 10x as efficient as PHP" is derived from some synthetical benchmarks; relation to actual Facebook code is not really given
- it is not specified how busy the servers actually are (the server farm is probably designed to handle a certain "peak load", and probably idles during other times)
- usually, servers are not busy with continuous PHP "number
crunching" but perform other operations as well (waiting for incoming HTTP requests, processing HTTP requests in web servers, waiting for database responses)

Last time I read about such a piece of shit is ... wait, I've never read such a piece of shit. Btw, posting and reading this shit wastes CO2, too. Better you shut your server off.

C++ sucks referring to fast program changes. Try Pike instead, a very fast (also compared to Python and Ruby) interpreter language.

English Wiki says it is used by Opera Mini for this reason.

http://pike.ida.liu.se/

What you forget in your calculation: Programming C++ takes longer than programming PHP, which is why you have to add all the CO2 produced by the additional programmers :P

There is problem with your blog. When I am reading some posts at full, I can't go back to Blog main page. Please kindly fix that and plz tell us how to do so when we use Wt to do own blogs. Thanks.

Ehhhmmm.. I do not believe that global warming is caused by men :P

What can I say , I watch South Park and "Penn and Teller's Bullshit" too much :D

Regards,
Dushan

That's pretty funny.
C++ is greener then PHP.
Yet another reason that PHP sucks LOL