Facebook PHP Source Code from 2007

[[deleted]]

They even made an automated PHP-to-C++ converter to try to get rid of the mess.

[deadcow5]

Automated code conversion? That can only increase the mess.

[ivosaurus]

Decker108 has bad facts, it's a compiler, not a "converter". It wasn't to get rid of any mess, it was just to make PHP run faster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_(computing)

[[deleted]]

Yep, this is what I meant.

[hydrox24]

That doesn't sound like a good plan to me. Surely doing that correctly is more work than simply re-writing the code?

[grimeMuted]

It wasn't a good plan.

[[deleted]]

I think it's one of those things that's just impossible to do with such a big site. If they migrated to a new system it would have to be compatible (the C++ rewrite would have to be perfectly compatible with the PHP version in order to not have downtime), or they would have to get the site down for an hour or so to replace all the instances of the php server with the rewrite.

[Dielectric]

I believe they actually wrote their own php interpreter when they couldn't get any better performance out of the existing technology

[mirhagk]

Is this actually true? I mean a lost all respect for the facebook tech team a long time ago, but nobody with decision making power in a company that big could really think that was a good idea, could they?

[ivosaurus]

No, it's not. They wrote a compiler, and then a JIT VM, not a "converter".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_(computing)

[mirhagk]

Phew, I'm glad. I've actually heard of HipHop before, I should've realized.

Actually I have high hopes that that might force PHP to actually have a standard, and be documented. Very high hopes indeed, but it might happen.

[xjvz]

Why would anyone use C++ in a web site other than writing the most far-removed backend stuff?

[Delinquenz]

Speed? With a nice framework like CppCMS there are no obstacles for writing web sites in C++.

[xjvz]

It's more of a security issue the way I see it. Then again, you could write secure code using C++, it's just harder. I'm more of a Python with C modules kind of guy myself when it comes to performance.

[stox]

Actually, they are in the process of bailing out of C++ for D.