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Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

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Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#11

This makes me love PHP more. If that was possible. He just gets it. If you want to spend your days drawing UML, writing documentation and unit tests. That is dandy, but you're in PHPLand now. This is our land, and we dont care about no freakin' memory leaks.

you should unit test your php

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#12
post #10

Rasmus Lerdorf created the most popular language for building web apps. Websites that changed the world were built with this language, and most newcomers seem to choose it as well. It managed to get a substantial share of a market that companies like Microsoft or Sun put huge resources into. On top of all that, he actually remains a pretty cool and down to earth guy, as far as I can tell from reading his online stuff…

I like it when language designers are "cool". My favorite language is Python, but I like Larry Wall's quirky personality better than Guido's, and Rasmus' is great. ;)

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#14

This makes me love PHP more. If that was possible. He just gets it. If you want to spend your days drawing UML, writing documentation and unit tests. That is dandy, but you're in PHPLand now. This is our land, and we dont care about no freakin' memory leaks.

Do you have any concept of just how much time and money hacked-together PHP has cost?

Do you know how many aggregate human lifetimes are wasted on the simple act of regularly upgrading PHPBB, WordPress, MediaWiki, et al?

It's mindboggling. It's sad. It's penny wise, pound foolish.

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#15
post #10

Rasmus Lerdorf created the most popular language for building web apps. Websites that changed the world were built with this language, and most newcomers seem to choose it as well. It managed to get a substantial share of a market that companies like Microsoft or Sun put huge resources into. On top of all that, he actually remains a pretty cool and down to earth guy, as far as I can tell from reading his online stuff…

But it's not intrinsically good; every one of PHP's advantages is offered by other languages, without all the downsides. PHP's poor design and implementation has probably cost the world millions of lost man-hours; loss that could have been avoided by choosing a better-designed solution.

It's certainly an accomplishment to create popular software, but this popular software is not necessarily something that should be used. The popularity is a function of choices made by uneducated users.

(IE 6 is very popular, after all, but it's definitely not the best web browser around.)

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#16

This makes me love PHP more. If that was possible. He just gets it. If you want to spend your days drawing UML, writing documentation and unit tests. That is dandy, but you're in PHPLand now. This is our land, and we dont care about no freakin' memory leaks.

Do you have any concept of just how much time and money hacked-together PHP has cost? Do you know how many aggregate human lifetimes are wasted on the simple act of regularly upgrading PHPBB, WordPress, MediaWiki, et al? It's mindboggling. It's sad. It's penny wise, pound foolish.

I think you make a valid point.

Maintaining PHP apps can be a pain and the language isn't the prettiest to work with.

However, PHP has created a world where millions of people can create basic web applications, which has led to the creation of tens of millions of new sites and applications, some of those which have changed the world.

PHP has allowed more people to code, which has allowed the world to test many more ideas, many of which have created tremendous value that I think far outweigh the costs.

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#17
post #10

Rasmus Lerdorf created the most popular language for building web apps. Websites that changed the world were built with this language, and most newcomers seem to choose it as well. It managed to get a substantial share of a market that companies like Microsoft or Sun put huge resources into. On top of all that, he actually remains a pretty cool and down to earth guy, as far as I can tell from reading his online stuff…

But it's not intrinsically good; every one of PHP's advantages is offered by other languages, without all the downsides. PHP's poor design and implementation has probably cost the world millions of lost man-hours; loss that could have been avoided by choosing a better-designed solution. It's certainly an accomplishment to create popular software, but this popular software is not necessarily something that should be u…

I think you could make the somewhat tautological case that IE 6 is not bad enough to make many people use something else or that php is good enough to make many people choose it.

Defining good is always tricky, but being chosen by many people when other good choices are available is not a bad test for certain definitions of good.

Choices may not always be %100 rational. They are usually not random.

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#18
post #10

Rasmus Lerdorf created the most popular language for building web apps. Websites that changed the world were built with this language, and most newcomers seem to choose it as well. It managed to get a substantial share of a market that companies like Microsoft or Sun put huge resources into. On top of all that, he actually remains a pretty cool and down to earth guy, as far as I can tell from reading his online stuff…

But it's not intrinsically good; every one of PHP's advantages is offered by other languages, without all the downsides. PHP's poor design and implementation has probably cost the world millions of lost man-hours; loss that could have been avoided by choosing a better-designed solution. It's certainly an accomplishment to create popular software, but this popular software is not necessarily something that should be u…

>PHP's poor design and implementation has probably cost the world millions of lost man-hours; loss that could have been avoided by choosing a better-designed solution.

Could you give some examples of this?

I'm not a huge fan of PHP, but it generally works, as folks like FaceBook have proven.

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#19

This makes me love PHP more. If that was possible. He just gets it. If you want to spend your days drawing UML, writing documentation and unit tests. That is dandy, but you're in PHPLand now. This is our land, and we dont care about no freakin' memory leaks.

Do you have any concept of just how much time and money hacked-together PHP has cost? Do you know how many aggregate human lifetimes are wasted on the simple act of regularly upgrading PHPBB, WordPress, MediaWiki, et al? It's mindboggling. It's sad. It's penny wise, pound foolish.

On the other hand, think of all the jobs and employment created as a byproduct of all this "waste"! I daresay php has created wealth.

Re: Some surprising quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (php creator)

#20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any concept of just how much time and money hacked-together PHP has cost? Do you know how many aggregate human lifetimes are wasted on the simple act of regularly upgrading PHPBB, WordPress, MediaWiki, et al? It's mindboggling. It's sad. It's penny wise, pound foolish.

I think you make a valid point. Maintaining PHP apps can be a pain and the language isn't the prettiest to work with. However, PHP has created a world where millions of people can create basic web applications, which has led to the creation of tens of millions of new sites and applications, some of those which have changed the world. PHP has allowed more people to code, which has allowed the world to test many more i…

This sounds like a false dichotomy:

- A world that has PHP and enabled web developers.

- A world without PHP in which only Java EE-enabled engineers can write webapps.

I think that's a demonstrably false assessment. A language as poorly designed and implemented as PHP isn't necessary to be accessible to "millions of people" -- in fact, does the opposite in enabling them to make serious and expensive mistakes.

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