Hack vs PHP vs Python

Overview

PHP

Stacks147.4K

Followers82.9K

Votes4.6K

GitHub Stars39.6K

Forks8.0K

Python

Stacks262.9K

Followers205.4K

Votes6.9K

GitHub Stars69.7K

Forks33.3K

Hack

Stacks818

Followers169

Votes29

GitHub Stars18.5K

Forks3.1K

Hack vs PHP vs Python: What are the differences?

**Introduction:**
When considering programming languages for web development, it's essential to understand the key differences between Hack, PHP, and Python to make an informed decision based on specific project requirements.

**1. Static vs. Dynamic Typing:** Hack is statically typed, meaning variables must be declared with their data types at compile time, providing more robust error checking and better performance. On the other hand, PHP and Python are dynamically typed, allowing variables to dynamically change data types during runtime, offering greater flexibility but potentially increasing the likelihood of errors.

**2. Language Origin and Purpose:** Hack was developed by Facebook as a typed variation of PHP to enhance performance and maintainability of large-scale web applications. PHP was designed for web development and scripting, offering simplicity and ease of use. Python, known for its readability and simplicity, is a versatile language suitable for web development, scientific computing, AI, and more.

**3. Extension Support:** Hack has limited support for third-party extensions due to its stricter typing system. PHP has a vast ecosystem of extensions for various functionalities, making it highly extensible and customizable. Python's extensive standard library and pypi repository make it easy to find and integrate third-party packages for almost any task.

**4. Syntax and Usability:** Hack's syntax closely resembles PHP, making it easy for PHP developers to transition. PHP has a simple syntax that is beginner-friendly and widely used in web development. Python's clean and concise syntax, focusing on readability, promotes code readability and maintainability.

**5. Error Handling:** Hack's static typing helps catch potential errors at compile time, reducing runtime errors. PHP and Python rely more heavily on runtime error handling, leading to potential bugs that may go undetected until execution.

**6. Performance:** Hack's static typing and improved compilation process usually result in better performance compared to PHP and Python, especially for large-scale web applications with complex logic and high traffic volumes.

In Summary, understanding the differences between Hack, PHP, and Python in terms of typing, purpose, extensibility, syntax, error handling, and performance is crucial for choosing the most suitable language for a specific web development project.

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Advice on PHP, Python, Hack

Thomas

Talent Co-Ordinator at Tessian

Mar 11, 2020

Decided

In December we successfully flipped around half a billion monthly API requests from our Ruby on Rails application to some new Python 3 applications. Our Head of Engineering has written a great article as to why we decided to transition from Ruby on Rails to Python 3! Read more about it in the link below.

263k views263k

Comments

Avy

Apr 8, 2020

Needs adviceon

React Native

Python

Flutter

I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.

A little about the app:

Social network type app ,
Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .

Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications

I have two options:

@{React Native}|tool:2699|, @{Python}|tool:993|, AWS stack or
@{Flutter}|tool:7180|, @{Go}|tool:1005| ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)

722k views722k

Comments

Ítalo

VP Platform Engineering at Lykon

Feb 19, 2020

Decided

We decided to use python to write our ETLs and import them into metabase via a lambda. Before python we tried using Go, but overall go was way more verbose than Python when writing the ETLs. Go also had some issues managing memory when using the S3 upload manager library. This was a deal breaker for us that made us switch to Python.

In the end the solution was much cleaner and maintainable.

261k views261k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

PHP	Python	Hack
Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.	Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.	Hack provides instantaneous type checking via a local server that watches the filesystem. It typically runs in less than 200 milliseconds, making it easy to integrate into your development workflow without introducing a noticeable delay.
-	-	Fast Development; Type Checking; Built for HHVM; Type Annotations; Generics; Lambdas
Statistics
GitHub Stars 39.6K	GitHub Stars 69.7K	GitHub Stars 18.5K
GitHub Forks 8.0K	GitHub Forks 33.3K	GitHub Forks 3.1K
Stacks 147.4K	Stacks 262.9K	Stacks 818
Followers 82.9K	Followers 205.4K	Followers 169
Votes 4.6K	Votes 6.9K	Votes 29
Pros & Cons
Pros 954 Large community 820 Open source 767 Easy deployment 488 Great frameworks 387 The best glue on the web Cons 21 So easy to learn, good practices are hard to find 16 Inconsistent API 8 Fragmented community 6 Not secure 3 No routing system	Pros 1188 Great libraries 967 Readable code 849 Beautiful code 790 Rapid development 692 Large community Cons 53 Still divided between python 2 and python 3 28 Performance impact 26 Poor syntax for anonymous functions 22 GIL 21 Package management is a mess	Pros 6 Interoperates seamlessly with php 6 Open source 5 Backed by facebook 4 HHVM 2 PHP like
Integrations
Laravel JavaScript	Django	HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)

What are some alternatives to PHP, Python, Hack?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

Rust

Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.

Related Comparisons

Hack vs PHP vs Python: What are the differences?

**Introduction:**
When considering programming languages for web development, it's essential to understand the key differences between Hack, PHP, and Python to make an informed decision based on specific project requirements.

**1. Static vs. Dynamic Typing:** Hack is statically typed, meaning variables must be declared with their data types at compile time, providing more robust error checking and better performance. On the other hand, PHP and Python are dynamically typed, allowing variables to dynamically change data types during runtime, offering greater flexibility but potentially increasing the likelihood of errors.

**2. Language Origin and Purpose:** Hack was developed by Facebook as a typed variation of PHP to enhance performance and maintainability of large-scale web applications. PHP was designed for web development and scripting, offering simplicity and ease of use. Python, known for its readability and simplicity, is a versatile language suitable for web development, scientific computing, AI, and more.

**3. Extension Support:** Hack has limited support for third-party extensions due to its stricter typing system. PHP has a vast ecosystem of extensions for various functionalities, making it highly extensible and customizable. Python's extensive standard library and pypi repository make it easy to find and integrate third-party packages for almost any task.

**4. Syntax and Usability:** Hack's syntax closely resembles PHP, making it easy for PHP developers to transition. PHP has a simple syntax that is beginner-friendly and widely used in web development. Python's clean and concise syntax, focusing on readability, promotes code readability and maintainability.

**5. Error Handling:** Hack's static typing helps catch potential errors at compile time, reducing runtime errors. PHP and Python rely more heavily on runtime error handling, leading to potential bugs that may go undetected until execution.

**6. Performance:** Hack's static typing and improved compilation process usually result in better performance compared to PHP and Python, especially for large-scale web applications with complex logic and high traffic volumes.

In Summary, understanding the differences between Hack, PHP, and Python in terms of typing, purpose, extensibility, syntax, error handling, and performance is crucial for choosing the most suitable language for a specific web development project.

Hack vs PHP vs Python

Overview