Question

_{(source: atmel.com)}

Background

I’ve a 5 years PHP background and in the last month I’ve been busy finding a way to do web with C++ (even if I know this is childish and stupid, I feel like C++ is the only true programming language and I have this sort of religious faith in it that makes me love it and only it).

My CGI trip

I’ve come across several blog posts (mostly from 2000-2003), discussions and had some chat discussions here. This is what I’ve gathered:

• PHP is designed for the web while C++ is a generic purpose language.
• PHP is inconsistent and have a lot of hate on the web
• PHP is the most common and supported scripting language out there
• CGI is a pretty old and common technology that was used in the days before PHP (PHP1 was actually a CGI library for C)
• In CGI (vs PHP) we have the problem of the fork-exec execution for each process which kinda slows everything down
• ^ this is what FastCGI is there for
• For some common mathematic operations C++ is 200X faster than PHP (because of PHP being an interpreted language)
• Big websites that requires performance doesn’t use pure PHP (Facebook use HipHop which is something related to C++ and on Google there are several rumors about it being written in Perl, C++, C or some other language but PHP)
• PHP is faster to learn and to write
• C++ has very bad string manipulation methods
• There are some good (subjective) libraries for C++ CGI like wT (witty).
• Some people just told me to stay away from PHP as far as I could

Real question(s)

Today I have to decide whatever to go with PHP or CGI. And I’m asking you:

1. Is CGI dead in 2013? (yeah I know it has been asked before)
2. Since everybody needs performance and considering that I’ve time to spend like 1 year to build a solid C++ library for the web and that I don’t like easy things, what are the cons in using CGI (or FCGI) nowadays (in comparison to newer techonologies)
3. Is there a more efficient way to build websites with C++
4. What is the real deal with FastCGI?
5. Is FastCGI widely supported?
6. Considering a project where I have to build a web tool, web app, iphone app, pc app and mac app all around a single website/server/database, can I actually reuse some code from the C++ website for my applications? (the database interaction for example)?

Answer 1

1. Almost used for only very specific cases
2. Don’t build one use one: CppCMS*
3. Yes, C++ Web Frameworks
4. Because it is dead for a long time ago
5. It replaces CGI making it VERY efficient
6. Yes – all major (and minor) web servers support it

* Full-disclosure: I am the author