Key Differences Between PHP and Ruby

As Ruby on Rails has gained increased popularity in recent years, many PHP programmers have kept a close eye on how the framework has progressed. While some of the leading applications online today such as Basecamp rely upon Ruby, PHP keeps going strong. Even as Ruby has evolved, progressed and matured, new frameworks for PHP and the release of new modules have helped it keep pace with modern web application standards.

While the release of PHP 5 continued to improve the evolution of the language, many coders were drawn to the simplicity and logical syntax of Ruby. For example, Ruby automatically incorporates many of the functions that PHP requires. At a basic level if you’re looking to use basic syntax, Ruby is much simpler and more straightforward. Compare the code required to write a basic line of text in PHP to Ruby:

def user_messages(user)

  welcome = "Welcome ${user}"

  return welcome

end

As you can see from the above Ruby code, the organization of the code is much clearer and the intuitive, straightforward nature of the language makes it much easier to use.  While these differences are pretty basic, they can matter in the large scale when it comes to a logical presentation and design of your application.

function user_messages($user) {

  $welcome = "Welcome $user";

  echo “$welcome”;

}

Implementation and Development Distinctions

While the basic syntax of the languages differs, the more important distinctions related to their features and frameworks. In particular, PHP is now becoming a more mature framework with a large set of integrated libraries and APIs which make development easier. While Rails is growing in its scope and stature, the frameworks of PHP can helped narrow many of the development advantages of the language.  If you look at the origins of each language you’ll see that Ruby began as an object-oriented structure while PHP has evolved from more basic foundations. The organization of Ruby out of the box is much cleaner, while the major MVC frameworks provide the legwork to structure PHP properly.

Both languages have distinct advantages, and, in fact, learn from one another. If you look at the latest build of the Symfony PHP framework, you’ll notice a modular structure similar to Rails.  Ruby was built as a pure object oriented framework and the results shine through clearly – the application has been designed, at its core, to reflect a programmer’s approach to the problem and MVC frameworks for PHP have helped the language organize according to this structure as well.

Where Rails truly shines is in its integrated functionality which allows you to focus on processes over coding, which the MVC PHP frameworks (such as Zend) aim to provide as well. One major challenge with rails, however, remains compatibility and structural issues such as hosting, since the LAMP stack is highly mature.  In short, while you may be able to build Ruby on Rails applications faster than PHP applications, you can deploy them quicker in PHP in many cases. Both languages have their advantages, and a deeper understanding of both can help you make an informed decision.