Note: LAMP Isn’t About Perl or Python

Um… P is a letter which begins the words/acronyms PHP, Perl, and Python. Until that changes I’m pretty sure LAMP can stand for any of the 3 languages. Its just an acronym/buzzword, so who really cares?

Can’t seem to find my careface…

Umm, I really don’t think these sorts of terms are really etched in stone. LAMP is a somewhat slang type of term… its meaning, like any word, evolves over time and depends on its general usage. It’s generally accepted that LAMP refers to an open-source web stack running on Linux and Apache. I’ve even seen LAMP applied to solutions that use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone used it to refer to, say, BSD-Apache-Postgres-PHP. It seems to be most frequently used as a constrast/alternative to .NET or J(2)EE, and the basic point is that it’s a web stack built on open-source tools, rather than something controlled by a single vendor. As Wikipedia states:

“Some employ the term LAMP generically to describe such alternative systems rather than make a new acronym, using it to denote the contrast between such systems and a unified web application development environment (such as ASP, .NET or Java EE).”

Does Perl interface with mysql?

LAMR will probably not catch on. Mostly due to the fact that many (if not most) Rails developers prefer Lighttpd over Apache, and I am not sure that MySQL is the defacto database for Rails as it was for PHP.

It’s an acronym, not a frikin’ trademark. Now, perhaps if it had been the name of a specific OS project before it entered common usage you might have some claim here, but to be honest this assertion just makes you look silly. There is no one true acronym, programming language, editor od desktop environment; much as people seem to forget this, all open source projects are basically on the same side. There is no point in trying to seize control of a bunch of letters.

As far as I’m concerned, LAMP can stand for Linux-Apache-MySQL-[Perl|Python|PHP] or Llamas Ate My Pencils. There’s no point trying to claim PHP was here or for that matter anywhere first; Python and Perl both have longer histories than PHP. While I’m now mainly a PHP coder, I was writing Perl before Rasmus had even created his Personal Home Page tools, and have been studing Python recently because I need to modify widely-used code (eg Mailman) that’s written in it.

Oh and pixie – Perl can interface with MySQL, and pretty much anything else for that matter.

Jackson, LLMR is *almost* as good, but not quite.

The rest of you guys … relax, it’s a Friday. The post was intended to be a little silly (apparently lost on several commenters), and to introduce the LAMR acronym. No need to get all bent out of shape.

Yeah, I missed the silly intent of the post; it seemed to me that YOU were the one bent out of shape. Now I know better. Thanks.

I know that I was laughing my ass off in the office when this was posted. LAMR especially made me laugh.

Can’t agree more. It was O’Reillys that started this trend to sell more Perl and Python books. Then eventually people just starting accepting this like sheep.

Personally, I’m not a sheep and stand by the original definition and not something sold to consumers.

Please include in all following flames the echo of ‘baaaaaah!’

@Richard George:
Ok, ok, didn’t knew at the time… I just think Lamp going for php has a more proiminet position since at least it come first…

The meaning of words is determined by how people use them, not how they happen to have first been used. So LAMP means whatever people use it to mean, which certainly includes Python & Perl, and I’d argue that it’s more of a general direction than a specific set of tools. Also, even if Python and Perl are afterthoughts for that acronym it doesn’t make them less appropriate languages. Diner’s Club was the first credit card company in the world, but I wouldn’t argue that this fact makes Diner’s Club a “better” credit card than American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Carte Blanche, etc. Would you???

Actually, I now regret having spent these last two minutes commenting on this blog. It just makes me feel embarassed for the PHP community that this is being syndicated in relation to PHP. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a way to vote blogs off of planet-php.

Wow, that’s really interesting, Slabo.

Funny how no one’s tried to do an interpretive dance of meaning with PHP, PERL, XML, CSS, HTML, XHTML, RSS, RDF, SQL, or any of a zillion other web-dev related acronyms.

Just LAMP. Crazy, huh?

Let’s just start changing acronyms all around as we find it convenient. It’ll be fun for the whole family.

Wow, that’s a very interesting comparison, Clay.

Funny how none of those other acronyms are loosely affiliated collections of technologies. I’m sure there would be no room for interpretation of LAMP if it actually corresponded to a single product, a technology, a company, a brand, an international development ogranisation, etc. I suppose if you wear sunglasses & really squint your eyes, apples and oranges do look basically the same.

The closest analogy can think of to LAMP is AJAX, which we all know is an acronym for … oh, wait, I guess that’s not a very good example.