Rumours abound this weekend, and as usual in such matters, details are thin on the ground. Did that meeting really happen? And who is this lonesome coder supposedly re-writing PHP for the last two years? Is it a new runtime or a compiler? Someone knows, and for sure something is afoot, but what is it?
Most of the chatter out there on the Interwebs suggests ‘either’ a re-write of the runtime ‘or’ a compiler. But reading between the lines of this interview with an anonymous FBer, the announcement sounds likely to be ‘both’.
HyperPHP, or HPHP appears to provide a way to “compile” your PHP scripts. Well, I can see why that would make PHP run faster and maybe fix some of PHPs design-level weaknesses, but that’s only part of the picture. How do you then connect this compiled script back to your webserver? I refer you back to my last blog – CGI offers poor performance and FastCGI can be brittle and nasty to work with.
Which leaves two probables – either they’ve created a new mod_php for Apache, or in true Facebook style they’ve gone and hooked it up with a more modern, even driven, non blocking, c100k-busting daddy of a web server. Imagine that.
It won’t be a drop in replacement though, and it’s unlikely to make a scratch in mod_php’s existing install base. But it might just be interesting enough to draw some of the Ruby and Python strays back into the fold.
As for that meeting, it’s my guess that Facebook want to call it PHP-something, and for that they’ll need permission from the PHP developers. We’ll know more tomorrow.
So lets wait and see what the announcement brings… We’ll certainly be taking it for a spin, whatever it turns out to be, and reporting back here in due course.
