
PHP 5.4 Has A Built-In Development Web Server - dkd903
http://digitizor.com/2011/12/22/php-54-built-in-erver/
======
daleharvey
I spend most of my time writing either erlang or node web apps, its terribly
annoying when I switch to python / php / ruby and get told I have to configure
some web server to get started. I have had a ruby/python app start a
development server but still suggest I configure against apache for production

Its an absolute dream to be able to just download an application, compile it,
start it, point nginx at it and bam, its live

~~~
andregawron
TL;DR: if possible, create a develop environment which is as close as the live
environment

I think developing servers are only good for people writing libraries or
frameworks to get started. I might understand that people want to choose a
small and easy to set up webserver to get going when starting developing a
website.

But, in my opinion, as soon as you're getting serious, there's nothing better
than developing on a system which as close as possible to your live
environment (hardware is hard to mimic, so are websites running in the cloud)
including same webserver and software configurations.

Of course this means that you either:

a) have any influence on software installed or b) know what is installed and
how it is configured on the live system

I encountered several bugs which happen to be only on staging / live server,
but which I did not encounter in my development environment. Why? Different
OS. At this point, I'm trying to recreate my live-systems in virtual machines
as close as possible. This is not perfect hardware-wise, and software still
might behave differently, but it's damn close.

Another plus: I'm on a rolling release distribution and software packages are
updating fast. This can be problematic when developing websites and
applications. All my server-software is in the VM. I can choose when and what
to update, problem solved. It also keeps my desktop clean, no stuff installed
for developing purposes.

There's nothing worse than developing on a windows* machine and deploying on a
unix-based os.

* nothing against windows developers. Point is: different OSs behave differently.

~~~
daleharvey
I definitely agree, when I was talking about erlang + node.js I was talking
about developing with production web servers that are embedded in your
application

------
djjose
This seems nice but I just don't see myself using this over WAMP/MAMP. It's a
cinch to install and of course gives you a mysql setup right away to start
your codes. Plus it's likely closer to your production environment anyway (if
you're on LAMP). So what's the real use case for this then?

------
kijin
And some idiot somewhere is going to use it in production in 3... 2... 1...

~~~
jrockway
What do you think is so magical about Apache that qualifies it for production
use?

Just to annoy you, I think I'm going to setup a netcat instance where I type
the response to HTTP requests when I'm in the mood.

~~~
randallsquared
_What do you think is so magical about Apache that qualifies it for production
use?_

Years of bugfixing and at least some attempt to be hardened against common
attacks?

------
jaequery
here is an even easier way: sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

~~~
dangrossman
That's not easier for a variety of reasons, the first one being it only works
on OS distros with apt.

