Netscape founder says PHP beats Java

The simplicity of scripting language PHP means it will be more popular than Java for building web-based applications, internet browser pioneer Marc Andreessen predicted on Wednesday in a speech at the Zend/PHP Conference.

Java enjoyed great success when its inventor, Sun Microsystems, released it in 1995, largely because it was optimised better for programmers than for machines, making software development significantly easier, Andreessen said. Unfortunately, Java has acquired many of the unfavourable characteristics of its predecessors, he added.

Andreessen said: "Java is much more programmer-friendly than C or C++, or was for a few years there until they made it just as complicated. It's become arguably even harder to learn than C++." And the mantle of simplicity is being passed on: "PHP is such is an easier environment to develop in than Java."

That opinion might not sit well with Java loyalists - and there are plenty of them among the millions of Java programmers and hundreds of companies involved in the Java Community Process that controls the software's destiny.

But even some influential executives at IBM, which was instrumental in bringing Java to the server and whose WebSphere server software has Java at its core, see the benefits of PHP over Java.

Describing PHP's appeal to his company, Rod Smith, vice president of IBM's Emerging Internet Technologies Group, said: "Simplicity is a huge part of it... They weren't interested in adding language features to compete with other languages, [choosing instead] the simple way, and not the way we've done it in Java, unfortunately."

PHP is an open source project. Much of its development is in the hands of a company called Zend, which sells packaged PHP products, programming tools and support.

Wooing programmers is nothing new in the computing industry, where players constantly jockey to establish their products as an essential foundation. Indeed, many credit Microsoft's success to its highly regarded programming tools, which make it easier for developers to write software that runs on Windows.

PHP has caught on widely. About 22 million websites employ it, and usage is steadily increasing. About 450 programmers have privileges to approve changes to the software. Major companies that employ PHP include Lufthansa, Deutsche Telekom's T-Online and Yahoo!.

PHP is more limited in scope than Java, which runs not just on web servers but also on PCs, mobile phones, chip-enabled debit cards and many other devices. Some parts of the Java technology, though, such as Java Server Pages, handle much the same function.

Mike Milinkovich, executive director of Eclipse, said: "Java and PHP compete at some level. Get over it." Eclipse is an open source programming-tool project that long supported Java and now also supports PHP. "I'm looking forward to PHP kicking butt in the marketplace," Milinkovich said.

Java and PHP are drawing nearer to one another, though. Oracle, which also sells Java server software and whose database software can be used as a foundation for either Java or PHP, is among those working on an addition to Java to help the two software projects work together. Specifically, Java Specification Request 223 will "help build that bridge between the Java community and the PHP community", said Ken Jacobs, vice president of product strategy at Oracle, in a speech at the conference.

And even Andreessen, who just helped launch a start-up called Ning for sharing photos, reviews or other content online, acknowledges that Java has its place: "My new company is running a combination of Java and PHP. This is something I get no end of crap about.

"We have a core to our system that is built in Java. It is more like an operating system, like a system programming project. Then we have the entire application level - practically everything you see is in PHP."

PHP, like open source projects including Apache and Linux, has now received the blessing of major powers in the computing industry. IBM and Oracle are working on software that let PHP-powered applications pull information from their databases, and that endorsement has been important, said Zend CEO Doron Gerstel.

Gerstel said: "The fact that IBM and Oracle are behind it - this is for a lot of IT [customers] a quality stamp. The big guys endorse it, so it must be good."

The new version 5.1 of PHP, scheduled to arrive in early November, will include a faster engine to process PHP scripts, said Zeev Suraski, a Zend co-founder and PHP creator. It also will include a low-level "data abstraction layer" that makes it easier for PHP to communicate with different databases and a higher-level layer to interface with XML information produced and consumed by web services.

Version 6, which is expected to arrive in 2006, will support Unicode character encoding, which supports a wide range of alphabets, simplifying creation of software that works in multiple international regions.

Andreessen said he believes the web is where most new applications will reside - in part because web applications are available as soon as they're launched, sidestepping the distribution challenge of desktop software.

Andreessen said: "I think there's no question the web model is going to dominate over the next 10, 20, 30 years."

Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com