I'm using php for the last 6 months and i can pretty much do anything with it. But BIG websites like Facebook and Twitter don't appear to use php. I want to know what languages they use and why they chose that language over php.
Is Ruby on Rails a good language to build robust and big websites? I've seen RoR's video on youtube mocking other frameworks and languages. Is it really awesome?
It began its life as a Ruby on Rails application, and still uses Ruby on Rails to deliver most user-facing web pages. But about a year ago they started replacing some of the back-end Ruby services with applications running on the JVM and written in Scala
Facebook’s technology stack consists of applications written in many languages, including PHP, C, C++, Erlang and others.
twitter is built on Ruby on Rails
facebook uses PHP primarily, but also relies on "C++, Java, Python and Erlang" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Server_infrastructure
At this point Twitter mostly runs on Scala (though with some Ruby on Rails thrown in) (cite).
Facebook runs mostly PHP, but also uses some C++, Java, Python and Erlang on the back-end (cite).
I would say that this depend on how familiar are you with the language. Any language can be use to build robust and big websites
Large website optimization is typically a matter of how you optimize database queries.
In terms of the language itself, you can always run PHP on more computers as they become saturated. Their isn't really anything that prevents PHP from working on large websites, it is more about the type of code that you are comfortable using.
And yes, I think Ruby/Python produces better code, but in the end, any code can be made to look horrible and run slowly.
