NYCPHP Meetup

[Jayesh Sheth]

Hi Eric,

I tried an earlier version of the Roadsend Compiler. While it is a good
product, and while its authors have clearly put a ton of work in it, I
identified several deal-breaker shortcomings for me. For one, it is a
re-implementation of the entire Zend Engine interpreter / compiler, so
many built-in PHP functions, constructs and conventions are not
supported. It has support for some PHP extensions bundled, but not for
all. For example, when you use a mysql_ or mysqli_ function in PHP, you
are really using the MySQL client libraries through a PHP function. In
other words, the real strength of PHP lies in how it builds a framework
of functionality using existing third-party open source C libraries. PHP
may have 3000+ "built-in" functions, but a lot of them rely on
third-party extensions. The Roadsend Compiler is a fine product, and
fills a certain niche, but I found it too limited in its current form
for my needs.

For creating desktop applications with PHP, I would recommend checking
out the following:
WinBinder (only for Windows): 
http://www.hypervisual.com/winbinder/index.php

PHP-GTK (cross-platform): http://gtk.php.net/
A vastly improved version 2 of PHP-GTK should be released in the coming
months.

Hope that helps.

- Jay