For a recent consulting engagement, I reviewed a Web
application nearing completion. The application was written in PHP,
and had some serious performance problems. After a brief look at
the code, I decided to search the Internet for any articles or information
on tuning the performance of PHP code. To my surprise, I found very little
information available. The PHP manual (see Resources)
suggested simply throwing in more hardware.
In my client's case, this was not always an
option. Many systems were already in the field, and this application was a
product upgrade. It was not feasible to upgrade every system in the field
for this relatively minor product upgrade.
I had to devise my own tests to find ways of improving PHP.
Thanks to IBM's developerWorks, I can share these findings with
a much broader audience.