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Many question, as to why Facebook has kept itself attached to PHP till date. Some argue that Zuckerberg was well versed with PHP web development and that made him stick to PHP while some believe that the rate at which Facebook grew after its deployment forced it to remain coded with PHP only.
With Mark’s vision Facebook is continually focused to make significant changes at great speeds. This has been clearly reflected with the dynamism that it has shown changing the profile layout of users at regular intervals. Looking at these changes one can easily think of the depth of customization that is needed at the basal levels to create such interfaces.
Actually, PHP web development can offer quick deployment of software that is initiated or guided by a particular idea with robust customization. Compared to its close competitor ASP.net, PHP is often quicker with its upgrades and have a dedicated community of more than thousands of geeks to solve problems without spending a penny. This might have attracted mark to go the PHP way. Arguably!! But what about slow execution of codes that PHP suffers? Why didn’t Facebook developers use ASP.net and other programs which easily compile codes that could have given enhanced performance to the users of the most popular Social Networking site?
Digging deeper, if we try to peep into Zuckerberg’s personal beliefs we notice that Zuckerberg is a promoter and active supporter of the free web. listing ‘OPENNESS’ as one of his interests in his personal Facebook page Zuckerberg also funded the ‘ Diaspora’ , a free web server for serving Social networking sites. This gives us few hints that Zuckerberg belongs to the school which supports the idea of free knowledge and its electronic usage.
But these facts are not enough for something like Facebook, which is an innovator in itself. In fact, Facebook went so far with PHP that it actually created some path breaking web tools that are installed in Facebook and are used seamlessly by every Facebook user. In 2010 Facebook wrote the PHP runtime from scratch and released it calling it ‘Hip-Hop’. ‘Hip-Hop’ reduced the CPU usage on its web servers by 50%. Lesser CPU usage means lesser load on servers and faster code execution. This drastically reduces the expenses as lesser web servers will be put into use. however some tech experts argue that Hip-Hop is nothing special. They argue that it only omits the run time problems of codes that are common in PHP. This again compels one to raise doubts on Facebook’s mobility and being stuck with PHP.
What’s interesting, Facebook released ‘Hip-Hop ‘as an open source tool for other PHP lovers across the world so that everyone working with PHP can make use of it . This gesture certainly backs Zuckerberg’s philosophy of the free web and access to intellectual property.
Speculations and analysis will continue to surround these confusing events and decisions made by Facebook over time. But it is evident that Facebook has built an elite team of engineers over time which has taken Facebook to its current position. As the clock ticks and Facebook draws closer to the 1billion mark it becomes affirmative that it will likely bring better innovations for the PHP lovers across the world.
