Michael,
Can't disagree that PHP is faster than non-mod_perl code, since it's run by mod_php which embeds the PHP interpreter into Apache, the same way mod_perl embeds the perl interpreter into Apache.
The advantage is that mod_perl gives you all the power -- and problems -- of perl from an ISP point of view, so it's easier for them to enable PHP across a site than mod_perl and/or even perl/cgi-bin access.
There are a great number of scripts that are mainly interface layers to a back-end database or dynamic data. PHP works great for that. When you need more complex system interaction, spawning, cron jobs, and all sorts of things that occur on a hardware-server rather than apache-server level, the power of PERL comes into play.
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