Originally Posted by brandonstills

I like the way you think and respond ScriptWorkz. I'm not intending this as a bash, I'm just pointing out what I don't like and wanting to find a better solution. So many people would take it as an insult to their favorite programming language and get defensive (as can be seen above). This could have easily escalated into a flame but I think both of us are only interested in exploring the options and learning from each other.

I'm not hating PHP, it's just that after you use other languages and get used to some of what they offer, it's a pain to go back to PHP. Many PHP programmers that learn Ruby feel this way. They don't want to go back because it feels like having to use a horse once you've driven a car.

I've recently been studying compiler design and comparing a lot of different languages. I want to write my own language as an exercise.

Actually, what I would really love to see is for something like Microsoft's dynamic language runtime or Sun's Da Vinci Machine project that can be written in any language and deployed to a server. Too many environments force you to use a language. They are going to compile to bytecode anyways, why not let you write your own bytecode in whatever language you want? The main problem is having a common open-source platform to deploy to.

I've also thought it might be cool to implement a virtual machine inside of PHP so you can run bytecode compiled in other languages. Obviously not ideal for performance, but for backend admin tasks you aren't submitting hundreds of forms per second.