Well, I am currently developing a web application for our helpdesk. It relies on a MySQL-database and the frontend is done in PHP. The app is (at the moment) used for customers mail queries. Right now, I consider porting it to Perl, and this is what came my way:
- PHP is much faster than plain Perl/CGI. (No wonder, it's an Apache module.)
- Mod_perl might be as fast as or faster as PHP (I'm currently figuring out.)
- Developing in PHP is quiet easy: besides the already mentioned automatic variable creation, I find it very handy, that you can put your PHP code directly into the HTML page. You don't have to wrap all your HTML into print() calls.
- I really miss a PHP-CPAN. Because the app is more or less an email client, I have to deal with attachments and stuff. Finding a working, MIME-handling PHP class was really a pain, Perl has great MIME modules.
- PHP can natively do HTTP Authentication. Simply send a 401 header and find username and password in special variables.
- If you need database support, you have to recompile PHP (which is rather annoying). Perl just needs the proper DBD-module.
Just my .02 cents.
