Question

Here’s the situation:

I currently have a web application that uses PHP to serve HTML/CSS/JS and that talks to a MySQL DB. Completely vanilla and common. The PHP is a mixture of presentation logic (HTML generation, etc) and business logic (the app uses Ajax extensively to make requests for data or to tell the server to make changes to something).

As part of a redesign of this system I am removing all of the presentation logic from the PHP. Instead, I will be using Ext JS 4 (a javascript-based windowing toolkit / app) connected to a web socket gateway (a COMET/AJAX replacement that allows bi-directional communication) on the server. Let’s wave a magic wand for a minute and forget about how the Ext JS 4 gets delivered to the browser and how it talks to the web socket gateway.

What we are left with is a web socket gateway (written in Java and running persistently listening on a specific port for web socket connections) and some business logic / DB interaction currently written in PHP.

At this point, I see one of two options:

1. Keep the business logic / DB interaction in the PHP and execute it by calling either PHP from the command line or by having the PHP / Apache listen on a different port only for communications from the web socket gateway.

2. Write a new Java or C++ application that will be persistent and listen on a specific port for communications from the web socket gateway. The business logic / DB integration is re-written in Java or C++ code and is part of this application.

Would re-writing in Java or C++ give better performance than calling PHP over and over? (The PHP code is pretty cleanly written: object-oriented using packages like CodeIgniter and Doctrine).

Would the performance benefits outweigh the hassle of re-writing all the business logic? Obviously dependent on many factors such as quantity of code but what is your gut feeling?

In case it might influence your thinking / feedback, you should know that the web socket gateway (Kaazing) supports JMS, Stomp, AMQP, XMPP, or something custom you build yourself.

Let me know if there is any other info I can provide to help you with your answers.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I know a lot of the solutions I mention here are “ugly” but you sound like a person who’s looking to get results and refactor, so I hope it’s okay.

Do it the easy way (PHP if I understood correctly) first. Then run a realistic stress test. Since you’re making PHP calls, just create a realistic sequence (log in, change this, do that, log out) and run as many as you think is realistic. 100? 10000? It depends on how stressed you expect this thing to be and still preform.

That step is easier than it sounds. Don’t think “ultimate test framework”, think 20 line python script that runs as many threads as you want executing a few lines that will keep your application busy. If it takes you more than 40 minutes, stop and simplify. The hour you spend will be worth it.

If CPU hits 100 or you run out of some resource then perhaps it’s time for a rewrite, or you can probably guess what’s taking the longest and write it in C. If you do use C/C++ and you’re not 100% comfortable with it, avoid a major rewrite, since it’s a dangerous language with lots of opportunities for introducing bugs. Maybe even call compiled code from the PHP you have if that suits your application.

I’ve written server-side HTML-generating C code once. It’s not exactly the right tool for the job. PHP may be hackish but it gets the job done fast. I would avoid optimization unless/until it is actually needed.

Good luck, don’t forget to tell us how it goes!

Edit: If you do go for a mixed-language solution, don’t forget to clean it up after! Standardize what you do fast and what you do in PHP, do it in a common format, maybe write up a short readme. Again, those fifteen minutes will save you, or the next person, a few days and many hairs.