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Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

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Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#141

Post by badger7 »

shinyshiny wrote: post #140
badger7 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splendidly put. I'm a chef, and I don't want to talk about knives. I don't care that my knives are basic; taste my cooking. I don't care that your knives are wonderful; I want to taste your cooking. There's a reason that taste tests are done blindfolded, you know - ugly but delicious trumps beautiful but foul , every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

but presentation is a big part of cooking. good chefs can't just throw their delicious food on a plate they have to make it look good too.

Then perhaps you'd like to volunteer for a little experiment I've devised to find out how important it is?

It basically involves a chocolate mousse that looks like a bowl of faeces, and a bowl of faeces that looks like a chocolate mousse...

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#142

Post by [deleted] »

badger7 wrote: post #141
shinyshiny wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but presentation is a big part of cooking. good chefs can't just throw their delicious food on a plate they have to make it look good too.

Then perhaps you'd like to volunteer for a little experiment I've devised to find out how important it is? It basically involves a chocolate mousse that looks like a bowl of faeces, and a bowl of faeces that looks like a chocolate mousse...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#143

Post by rbanffy »

lincolnq wrote: post #135
rbanffy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it lovely when people can simply mod you down when they disagree with you instead of trying to debate?

Your comment wasn't worth responding to, because it was an obvious troll, designed to incite a strong emotional response from the reader. If you were intentionally trolling, you picked the wrong audience. If not, you should try to support your opinion with more facts and rational arguments.

I really thought it was an accurate and concise depiction on the history, limitations and overall characteristics of PHP.

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#144

Post by abyssknight »

hapless wrote: post #45
JustAGeek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with more or less with what you said but a downside of PHP is not security vulnerabilities, that's really just a myth. I can't remember the last vulnerability which could be directly attributed to PHP as a language. Sure, there are plenty of apps containing holes but those are not caused by PHP but by not coding correctly, eg not checking input making SQL injections possible etc. Which might confirm what you…

Languages are like tools: buying a the best set you can afford is the best possible start to a project. PHP doesn't cause SQL injection flaws, but it doesn't make it any easier. How many escape functions are there ? Shall we count them ? ---------- mysql_escape_string() - Escapes a string for use in a mysql_query mysql_real_escape_string() - Escapes special characters in a string for use in a SQL statement mysqli_rea…

They do exist, but I would never use any of them. I'd use a prepared statement. PHP has come a long way since stripslashes. It just isn't flavor of the month.

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#145

Post by abyssknight »

PHP is like that kid in school who got everything right but everyone hated. I'll be honest, I love PHP. I love it as much as I love Ruby, Python and any other language. For some reason communities have sort of ganged up on PHP and beat it to a pulp. The funny thing is, PHP, for the most part, outperforms them all in real world memory usage. Of course, that's probably because PHP is a language and Rails, Django and such are frameworks. PHP was built for the web, and as such it does a good job serving up web content.

The problem is that uneducated neophyte developers are polluting the tutorial scene and elitist, higher level language developers are shutting them down. Why aren't we helping these people progress? Why are they hitting a glass ceiling of knowledge?

I know, I was one of them. I worked at a small PHP shop and the attitude was "make it work, ask questions later". We got the job done. It worked, and the customers didn't notice a thing wrong with it. The problem was that I stopped learning. There was nothing more to learn about PHP. Why? Because it was a language. It's finite.

I've seen numerous posts about how horrible PHP is, but really, is it? It's a language. PHP, unlike a framework, is what you make of it. There are no standards, no methodologies, no guidance. That's what PHP needs -- a framework. Just as Ruby and Python after it needed a framework. Not because it makes you a better programmer, but because it allows others to understand, maintain and manage your code. The language you use doesn't make you a better or worse developer, it's how you use it.

Tools are tools. Skill are skills. I think the biggest mistake we make is mistaking tools for skill. Some of the greatest programmers I know write ColdFusion and PHP, and some of the worst I know write Ruby and Python (and yes, PHP).

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#146

Post by abyssknight »

Kaizyn wrote: post #77

The truth is that this is Hacker News. No matter how appropriate PHP may be as a tool for many web programming jobs, no one wants to admit to their cool 'Hacker' friends that they use it. Just like you won't hear many people talk about how they're using ASP.Net or C# for their startups. It's not that these are in some way inferior or bad; it's just that you don't get any hacker cred for using or talking about them.

I use .NET and VB.NET. I am not ashamed. :) Oh, and ColdFusion too. I'm proud to be a language agnostic developer. Immune from hype, smoke and mirrors. Hehe. Okay, maybe not as immune as I think.

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#147

Post by hapless »

brianr wrote: post #106
hapless wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages are like tools: buying a the best set you can afford is the best possible start to a project. PHP doesn't cause SQL injection flaws, but it doesn't make it any easier. How many escape functions are there ? Shall we count them ? ---------- mysql_escape_string() - Escapes a string for use in a mysql_query mysql_real_escape_string() - Escapes special characters in a string for use in a SQL statement mysqli_rea…

I wouldn't be so hard on php for the mysql_* functions; they're wrappers around the C functions of the same names: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysql-escape-string.h...

I wouldn't use C for web applications, either.

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#149

Post by gdee »

unexpected wrote: post #90
edw519 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great argument, nice analogy, makes a lot of sense, and I completely (and respectfully) disagree. Your analogy reminds me of the greatest cook ever, my grandmother. She used no technology whatsoever. All of her tools had been her mother's which were probably manufactured in the 1800s. She chopped everything by hand in a wooden bowl. (If anyone else helped her with the chopping, everyone at dinner could tell.) She nev…

I don't think your story is incompatible with my analogy, in fact I think it's totally in-line with my analogy. Many hobbyists who have reached the utmost peak level in their art go totally primitive. Cooks grow their own food. Carpenters make hand-made furniture, people really serious about clothes go bespoke. Just because we spend more time agonizing over things doesn't mean we have to spend more money on them. Mor…

So cooks, carpenters , people really serious about clothes are "hobbyists who have reached the utmost peak level in their art" but when I buy green and toast then grind for myself, I'm just a "coffee snob"... hmm... no Monsooned Malabar [1] for you.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsooned_Malabar

Re: Ask HN: Why no love for PHP?

#150

Post by badger7 »

badger7 wrote: post #141
shinyshiny wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but presentation is a big part of cooking. good chefs can't just throw their delicious food on a plate they have to make it look good too.

Then perhaps you'd like to volunteer for a little experiment I've devised to find out how important it is? It basically involves a chocolate mousse that looks like a bowl of faeces, and a bowl of faeces that looks like a chocolate mousse...

No? I guess I'll take that as concession :)
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