Monday, May 26, 2008

XAMPP is The Best Choice for Programmers

XAMPP is an open source suit of Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl. To many people, installing Apache, MySQL and PHP is difficult. XAMPP integrates them into one package. Moreover, it can run on many operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris. With XAMPP, you don't need to edit any configuration file, just unpacking it, even no need to install, you can run your Apache web server with PHP and MySQL support.

Why did I say the XAMPP is appropriate for Programmers? Here are some reasons. First, XAMPP can run on many platforms, you needn't change your program or configuration files if you want to change the operating system. Second, the default configuration of XAMPP is convenient for debug program. So it is not appropriate for the final products. Third, XAMPP provides some add-ons to extend its function. Now you can integrate Perl and Tomcat into XAMPP. Besides, XAMPP contains much PHP extensions, for example, libjpeg, libpng, gdbm, zlib, expat, Sablotron, libxml, etc.

The current version of XAMPP is 1.6.6a. The Windows distribution contains:
  • Apache HTTPD 2.2.8 + Openssl 0.9.8g
  • MySQL 5.0.51a
  • PHP 5.2.5
  • PHP 4.4.8
  • phpMyAdmin 2.11.4
  • FileZilla FTP Server 0.9.25
  • Mercury Mail Transport System 4.52
Do you want a try? Click here.

Update: I received the comments. I agree with them, too. I think a good PHP programmer should know how to configure Apache, PHP and MySQL, etc. I think XAMPP is the best because it makes the work very easy. So it can save much time. Certainly, unstanding how they work is necessary for a good programmer.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I sincerely disagree. Even though I don't expect all developers to be sysadmins, knowing the different parts of your stack at least a bit so you can install and configure them is essential to be a good developer. You have to be able to turn on or even install non-default php modules.

xampp may be nice for hobby programmers, but once you go a step further, you should know what you're working with.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Stefan, if you can't install the different parts of the stack yourself you're not much of a developer/programmer

Ellis said...

I prefer WAMP Server myself.

Anonymous said...

people should be installing and configuring Apache/Perl themselves, or have their server admins do it. Learning how to do it properly means that if you ever have any problems in future, or if you are in a situation where you to deal with someone elses system, it is a huge advantage to know what you are doing. Also Strawberry Perl is the way to go for Perl on Windows. Getting a C compiler, build tools and access to CPAN.

Anonymous said...

What about poor support for mac users? Apache lovers website states since forever that whoever uses XAMPP the mac version does it at it's own risk...