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I was only in part serious ;)
at least vBulletin is a LOT better than phpNuke which seems incredibly popular.
I'd still prefer Jive though, but mainly because it rubs my ego to see something used...

I'm wondering why a C(++) site would resort to a php based forum system anyway, and not use proper cgi ;)
Sun threw a tantrum when the company they'd outsourced the development of their forums to...

php is an interpreted language similar to Perl, there is no compilation stage.