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Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

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Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#91

Post by xiongchiamiov »

mojuba wrote: post #38

One nice thing about PHP is that despite its archaism it keeps growing as a language. The 5.3 release alone added anonymous functions, namespaces, consts and many internal improvements. I recently rewrote one of my projects from the 4.x era for version 5.3 and found myself thinking that I don't hate PHP so much anymore. I still don't like it either, but at least I know the language is in good hands anyway.

The problem is that they add them without breaking any backwards compatability, so you end up with unpleasantries like the \ namespace separator.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#92

Post by mojuba »

xiongchiamiov wrote: post #91
mojuba wrote: post #38

One nice thing about PHP is that despite its archaism it keeps growing as a language. The 5.3 release alone added anonymous functions, namespaces, consts and many internal improvements. I recently rewrote one of my projects from the 4.x era for version 5.3 and found myself thinking that I don't hate PHP so much anymore. I still don't like it either, but at least I know the language is in good hands anyway.

The problem is that they add them without breaking any backwards compatability, so you end up with unpleasantries like the \ namespace separator.

On the other hand breaking compatibility the way they did with Python 3 is reckless. Ask someone who has a huge code base with, say, test scripts that do 'print' a lot if they are eager to switch to Python 3.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#93

Post by BBonifield »

vital101 wrote: post #51
dangrossman wrote: post #19

You can just as easily say RoR is slower (than, say, Symfony 2.0 on PHP with an opcode cache) and harder to work with (from a system administration perspective). Take a look down the top 100 website list, and of those sites that are web applications, more of them will be built on PHP than not. I don't think there's even a Ruby application among the top 100 sites except parts of Twitter, but I could be forgetting some…

It's extremely important to draw a distinction between cool and practical. HN is all about the cool new hotness. People here are always on the bleeding edge of technology, so they tend to flock towards those instead. Also, hiring PHP developers is easier than developers. There are just more people with PHP knowledge. Not saying that is a good reason to use a language, but it is a factor.

My personal opinion about this is that the better/more driven/valuable developers are the ones who are quick to try new tech and follow emerging trends. Many people know PHP, but I think you'd likely find better talent in the long run if you offer a position that uses a more exciting back-end.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#94

Post by BBonifield »

kaylarose wrote: post #84
ErrantX wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded, Kohana really wipes the floor with CI nowadays (this from someone still forced to maintain a couple of CI-based sites...) :P

I like Kohana much more than CI, if only for tossing PHP4 support. However, but I've found that there is lots of fragmenting in the community/documentation. See the differences between 2.3.4 -> 2.4 (lots of breaking changes) -> 3.0 (almost entirely different framework). Which is kind of a bummer when using it for long-life projects (we have a few projects are stuck on 2.3.4). That said - Symfony 2.0 looks fantastic,…

Exactly the same story here. Our primary product is stuck on Kohana 2.3.4 because of the lack of care that the Kohana team put into backwards compatibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to essentially rewrite things again in the future either. If I could go back in time, I'd pick something else.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#95

Post by kemo »

BBonifield wrote: post #94
kaylarose wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Kohana much more than CI, if only for tossing PHP4 support. However, but I've found that there is lots of fragmenting in the community/documentation. See the differences between 2.3.4 -> 2.4 (lots of breaking changes) -> 3.0 (almost entirely different framework). Which is kind of a bummer when using it for long-life projects (we have a few projects are stuck on 2.3.4). That said - Symfony 2.0 looks fantastic,…

Exactly the same story here. Our primary product is stuck on Kohana 2.3.4 because of the lack of care that the Kohana team put into backwards compatibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to essentially rewrite things again in the future either. If I could go back in time, I'd pick something else.

Kohana 2 was "just a php5 fork of CI", while Kohana 3 is practically a whole new framework. The "problem" is that Kohana team doesn't like handicaping new versions for sake of complete backward compatibility.

They just make the framework better with every new version, although in case of Ko3 minor versions are backward compatible (for example 3.0.8 with 3.0.1., but 3.1.0 will not be, at least concerning the response object and the ORM logics).

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#96

Post by michaelhart »

kaylarose wrote: post #84
ErrantX wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded, Kohana really wipes the floor with CI nowadays (this from someone still forced to maintain a couple of CI-based sites...) :P

I like Kohana much more than CI, if only for tossing PHP4 support. However, but I've found that there is lots of fragmenting in the community/documentation. See the differences between 2.3.4 -> 2.4 (lots of breaking changes) -> 3.0 (almost entirely different framework). Which is kind of a bummer when using it for long-life projects (we have a few projects are stuck on 2.3.4). That said - Symfony 2.0 looks fantastic,…

that's exactly why I'll never use Kohana. I will have to look more into Symfony, however, before I can accurately compare.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#97

Post by xiongchiamiov »

mojuba wrote: post #92
xiongchiamiov wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that they add them without breaking any backwards compatability, so you end up with unpleasantries like the \ namespace separator.

On the other hand breaking compatibility the way they did with Python 3 is reckless. Ask someone who has a huge code base with, say, test scripts that do 'print' a lot if they are eager to switch to Python 3.

That's an easy enough fix, and one that's handled quite well by 2to3. In fact, 2to3 handles most things, although there is of course some stuff that needs to be done by humans. But that stuff is certainly not 'print'.

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#99

Post by jakerocheleau »

macco wrote: post #32

PHP is totally fine. The question is more: Do you like, do you want to work with PHP, or do you want to work with Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, Lisp, etc.

By the sounds of it Python or Ruby seem to be the best options. I've done light PHP work for a year or two before but wouldn't say I'm an expert of any sort. Thus why I'm so open to switching into learning a more "modern" language

Re: Ask HN: Is PHP/MySQL Still Practical for Building Web Applications?

#100

Post by kaylarose »

BBonifield wrote: post #94
kaylarose wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Kohana much more than CI, if only for tossing PHP4 support. However, but I've found that there is lots of fragmenting in the community/documentation. See the differences between 2.3.4 -> 2.4 (lots of breaking changes) -> 3.0 (almost entirely different framework). Which is kind of a bummer when using it for long-life projects (we have a few projects are stuck on 2.3.4). That said - Symfony 2.0 looks fantastic,…

Exactly the same story here. Our primary product is stuck on Kohana 2.3.4 because of the lack of care that the Kohana team put into backwards compatibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to essentially rewrite things again in the future either. If I could go back in time, I'd pick something else.

Yep. We are in exactly the same situation. Even moving to 2.4 looks to be a pain. The only brightside is that it's not THAT big of a framework, so patching it is not too bad. But still...
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