Jeff Sandquist has a pointer to a video interview with two programmers that are writing a PHP compiler for Microsoft’s .NET Framework. The name of their project is Phalanger.
That’s cool, I guess, if you don’t mind working in .NET. I’ve been thinking for awhile that I wouldn’t mind a PHP compiler that would create standalone executables (though cross-platform, not just tied to Windows), so this is kind of a step in that direction.
Of course, there’s already PHP-GTK which is cross-platform. And hmmm, I notice in their February news, there’s a pointer to a project called bcompiler which lets you create an exe file from a PHP-GTK app… very interesting.
Oops, and I notice the Roadsend PHP compiler does just what I was rhapsodizing about. It appears I’m behind the times. Though the “Professional” edition (compiles to Windows, Linux and FreeBSD) costs $399 (“Personal”—Windows only—is $89).
There’s a PHP command-line script I’ve wanted to speed up on a Linux box, so I poked around for a compiler. I didn’t see that Roadsend compiler, but that looks interesting. It’s pricey though, unless I wanted to use it for a lot of stuff.
It’s interesting that they’ve basically rewritten code for the PHP 4.3.x API as they claim is doesn’t use any of the PHP codebase. I’d be a little worried about strange little incompatibilities cropping up. But I might play around with the trial and see how it works.
Don’t bash us those who are forced to write in the .NET framework. I keep trying to PHP them but no avail anyways we have to make it work so a tool that does it for us would and/is sweet