Re: eCommerce with PHP and MySQL

I will be migrating my PHP applications to Java/JSP relatively soon, unless I find a PHP solution that works for me soon. Unfortunately, it seems that while PHP talks cross-platform, it is primarily meant for Apache. In my situation, I have to get rid of Apache because its per-process implementation is using up all my system resources. I am currently evaluating AOLServer as a potential replacement, but the PHP4 module for AOLServer crashes under any moderate load (you can crash it with a single IE browser). Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any help from the associated PHP lists, and the AOLServer community is pretty closely tied to TCL. This, as well as the lack of a standardized database API supporting connection pooling has convinced me to change to a more supported and mature API. While TCL under AOLServer certainly is robust, no other platforms are using the language for dynamic content. JSP seems to be the best solution because it is a standard language used outside of webservers, has good support in commercial webservers, and open source projects like Tomcat seem to be proceeding very well. I have not yet made my final decision, as I am waiting on a new revision of the nstomcat module for AOLServer, but this seems like the solution that will fit my needs as well as allow me greater freedom and flexibility in the future. Your mileage may vary, of course, but JSP has a number of positives in its favor, particularly for new products (porting code could be difficult). As far as MySQL is concerned, I made the decision to move to Sybase sometime ago. I have experience with Oracle and SQL Server 7 and I evaluated PostgreSQL 7 and Interbase 6 before making my decision to go with Sybase. Oracle is a good and *extremely* expensive solution. Once you start laying down money for Oracle and all the extra packages, like JBuilder, that you will want, you'll probably have spent more on Oracle than you did on your server. SQL Server 7 is less expensive, but it is Windows-only, and despite some recent changes, it is still very much like Sybase in my opinion (Microsoft licensed Sybase's SQL Server product and then more or less kept the name). I am very happy with Sybase, compared to MySQL. Sybase has full support for transactions, which has really been helpful. Additionally, it has full SQL92 language support, page and row-level locks (verses MySQL's "lock the whole table or lock nothing at all!" table locks), views, stored-procedures, and much more. I am *very* happy with it. As far as open source solutions go, PostgreSQL certainly has a number of advantages over MySQL, such as transactions and better language support, but it introduces its own set of problems. Specifically, there are very annoying fixed row-size limitations (defaulting to 8K) which limit the amount of data that can be inserted into any given row. Additionally, PostgreSQL uses a process-fork model to handle connections and I have found it to be very inefficient. Interbase, on the other hand, is a relatively well-rounded open source solution with decent feature support and and almost "out-of-the-box" installation. My problem with it, however, was the lack of an ASCII/flat-file import utility to migrate my existing data. The best I could find was a primitive fixed-length import utility which was completely unusable for my needs. If you are starting fresh, however, it could be an option. My experience with MySQL is that not only has its lack of transactions caused me trouble, but it the process size will grow with time and actually crash sooner or later. I don't know if you've experienced this, and if not, that's great, but it was too much trouble for me. MySQL is a good read-only database for small websites, but I would never entrust it with financial information on an eCommerce site. Good luck, -Brian Neal >Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 16:59:36 +0000 (GMT) >From: Tom Carter <tcarter@roundcorners.com> >To: php-db@lists.php.net >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Subject: eCommerce with PHP and MySQL > >Hi guys, > >Sorry if this is an old hat question, but I figured its best to speak to >those who know best ;o) > >We're planning to implement a series of eConmerce solutions using PHP with >a db backend. Initially our thoughts were to use MySQL as this is what we >have (successfully) used before for other (non eCommerce) projects. Are >there advantages to using other DB systems (extra features etc.)? > >Also, and I appreciate this is not really a PHP question so please humour >me, how easy (and how would one) is it to integrate automated credit >card/transaction proccessing with the PHP solution (obviosuly securely ;o) >) > >Thanks once again, > >Tom Carter >Web Programmer >roundcorners.com >