2.2.6     When to use PHP

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Owing to its fast development time, easy maintenance, and overall fast execution time, it is rare to find PHP is not the best choice for a web application. Homepages (big and small), database front-ends on the web, command line shell scripts where you want extra functionality, and even basic GUI development are all popular uses for PHP, and it excels at them all.

If you are doing anything that displays its text through a web browser, you are likely to find that PHP is your best choice. In the few rare occasions where you need higher performance, you may find that JSP will give you a small boost; otherwise you will need to use C. Be prepared for a very big productivity trade-off, however, as developing web scripts using C is much slower.