A rant about PHP compilers in general and HipHop in particular
Bookmarked by Ryan Tomayko on February 08, 2010
Paul Bigger, author of the phc PHP compiler, explains why Facebook’s HipHop is interesting and why the translator/compiler technique might be a better design than a JIT or something more… elaborate. Good article all around, even if you don’t care about PHP.
There’s some salt in there too:
I’m also slightly annoyed that people all of a sudden care about PHP compilers. I worked on one for 4 years and I could not convince anyone to give a shit. But now that its got the Facebook logo on it, all of a sudden PHP compilers are the greatest thing ever. Bah.
Lesson in marketing. Merit is not conducive to mass appeal.