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There are already a few posts on SO discussion whether this architecture is a good idea or bad idea. For many reasons within our company including the existing programming talent, we've decided to use Java for the backend and PHP for the front end. Our objective is something like...

Java - Models/Controllers

PHP - Views

We're working on building a prototype of the interaction between Glassfish and Apache. One thing we're still working on is when a user visits http://domain.com/login.html and they login, that login will be sent to the Glassfish controller which exists somewhere like /login.java. We can do that no problem, the trouble is getting the view to be rendered at that URL.

Has anyone does this with PHP or any other technologies?

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  • Like that old Lovin' Spoonful song goes: "you (should) pick up on one and leave the other behind!" ;) Commented Aug 24, 2012 at 20:07

3 Answers 3

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Have you considered setting up a soap/rest server in java and having PHP talk to that? I imagine that would be much simpler than what you're trying to achieve.

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4 Comments

We did this at my previous job and it worked well. Soap is a pain, but well supported. If you want to be adventurous you could try a jsonrpc implementation.
- that would be one of the IPC, or socket communication implementation.
We did use a Java Rest API (JSON) as backend and PHP as frontend. It was a great experience and we could also use the same backend for mobile platforms.
Use REST, if well designed, if should not hard to communicate both languages.
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I am sorry to bring this up but it seems like it would make things a lot simpler to stick with just one of these languages. If you are using PHP to add more logic into your view, it might be worth taking a look at Velocity. It allows you to access and create variables, iterate through lists, use conditionals, define macros, make method calls, etc. This seems like it might make things much cleaner. However, it is usually a good idea to try to keep as much logic out of your templates as possible.

If you would like to use PHP because that is what is required I would suggest taking a look at using web services to communicate. Take a look at Googles GSON library. It is really nice tool (on the java side) for mapping JSON Objects to your model (and vice versa).

On your front-end, it might also be worth taking a look at Backbone. It is a tool that makes it simple to mock up your model Objects and bind events to them, or add tie them directly to fields, etc.

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5 Comments

Don't use Velocity. Use something like JSF, or even JSP. Velocity is a very old templating language and it also has many, many drawbacks. JSF has a good bit of support behind it and can do a lot for you.
Really? What drawbacks does velocity have compared to straight JSTL? Velocity does not really require you to modify/write your code in any specific way. You just pass it whatever Objects you want and thats it. You can call methods, set variables, declare new ones etc. from teh template. Not that you should put all of this logic in a template. But Velocity allows you to.
Judging from is lack of developer support, mostly. I've asked many Java developers which templating they've used and only one (in the last 3 years) has heard of it.
That could just be how you are asking. Its a fairly commonly used library. Groovys templating is getting fairly common too. But it depends on your needs and the level you are working at. If you are doing basic enterprise apps chances are you will be using jsf with some arbitrary javaee implementation like spring MVC or something similar. If you are working with a more customized app sitting in a servlet container you are probably more likely to use a templating engine like velocity or groovy. At least that's from my experience.
In either case the person asking the question was looking for some tool allowing more logic in their view. They were investigating PHP so I suggested a templating engine along with some other tools that seemed like it would give them more flexibility in their view. Im not really advocating for using velocity over some other tool, you should use whatever fits your needs the most. Personally, I've been using the play framework lately over a more traditional javaee stack.
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I've had first hand experience at two companies that use the Java Service layer and PHP Client layer technology stack, although it was not used exclusively. To clearly separate the layers a well-defined JSON REST API was built so each layer had a contract it could code to.

The Java layer used SpringMVC in-between the persistence layer to generate JSON views with well-defined routes (i.e. URL structure) in order for the PHP layer to GET/PUT/POST/DELETE resources.

Regarding the login issue specifically, there were actually two Java services, one specifically for login/logout and the other for the regular backend.

When visiting /login which I assume would be a .php file. A submit of the login <form> to the "Login" service resulted in a session cookie being added but also an encrypted "user ID" cookie. The encrypted cookie could then be used to protect access to the Java Service layer for the product. Each REST request from PHP to Java would have access to the cookie, and the Java layer could then decrypt the "user ID" and respond to the PHP REST call if it was valid. The Java layer would then have access to the real user ID in order to return user-specific data from the persistent store.

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6 Comments

While most of the service was restful, it seems that the login was not, and additionally, the login depended on the PHP frontend, so I think you lost some separation of concerns there a bit.
If you have two heterogeneous layers, it makes sense to use a web service. If you're using web services, it makes sense to use REST/JSON (rather than WS/SOAP). ... BUT ... it would be BEST if you didn't unnecessarily pile on multiple different layers in the FIRST place! IMHO...
Login did not depend on PHP. It was an external Java service concerned only with logging in. How a product called it was up to them, be it from PHP or Java. Once a successful login was achieved it was then up to each product to protect its resources by using the cookie. Note this was not my architecture, I'm just detailing some information about a technology stack I worked with!
@andyb - I totally understand and respect where you're coming from. And I definitely appreciate your sharing your (useful!) experience. But nevertheless, I'm hoping if Webnet's company is about to make what appears to be a Dumb Decision, there's a chance for them to reconsider. KEY QUESTION: "Why "multiple languages?" I respectively submit that "Existing programmer expertise" is NOT a legitimate criterion. IMHO...
@paulsm4 Yes, I was certainly asking those same questions at the time! It did seem like a crazy decision to settle on a dual technology stack, especially since it ended up with Java doing MVC and then PHP doing MVC or MVVM as well!
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