PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998) • Hacker News Board

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#111

Post by waheoo » Sat, May 22, 2021, 7:39 AM UTC

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #34

dspillett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It basically did for simple web programming what visual basic did for Windows desktop toys: allowed you to throw some UI together (drag & drop components in the VB case, any old HTML with links or forms for PHP) then start stringing bit of code in haphazardly to link it together. No need to learn a more complex compiler or other build tools, worry about configuring CGI or other web server tech (unless running PHP you…

>Foreign keys? Let the business layer worry about rules like that! Rails made this approach viable at the time.

I still don't like using foreign keys. They just make things harder to work with for very little gain.

Wait for the crows.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#112

Post by cardanome » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:20 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #82

alberth wrote: post #11

It’s hard to explain just how much easier PHP made creating a dynamic web site back in the 90s / early 00s. You drop a file in your public web server folder and you’re done. Prior was CGI Perl scripts that hacked together how to access session and rest data. Or you had to develop in C. PHP had native support for the web. It also eliminate the need for an app server. I’m still not certain even today, if anything exist…

Not just the early 2000s - up until maybe 2010 or so (probably a bit later) PHP was the clear leader for anyone who wanted to get something done. There was Rails and ASP.net and Java (I don’t remember anything else that was super popular) but PHP was a million times faster to develop in. Anything you wanted was explained in depth in the first Google result. You want auth? A chat server? File management? You could get…

> PHP was the clear leader for anyone who wanted to get something done.

Isn't that still the case?

At least here in Europe the word Backend Developer is basically synonymous with PHP Developer.

Every other language for backend development is pretty niche. Sure there is Java (and C#) for the enterprise but that was already there back then. Ruby had a good run but modern PHP with frameworks like Laravel could reclaim most productivity benefits so not that fierce of a competition. JS with node, sure but I mostly hear it in the context of micro services which is the opposite of wanting to get something done.

> PHP barely ages - from 1999 or 2010 or 2020, it looks similar and works fine.

Yes but no. PHP takes stability and backwards compatibility quite seriously but the language and culture around it has changed tremendously. The wild west days are long gone, it has gotten much more professional and mature while adding many modern language features.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#113

Post by withinboredom » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:25 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #111

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Foreign keys? Let the business layer worry about rules like that! Rails made this approach viable at the time.

I still don't like using foreign keys. They just make things harder to work with for very little gain. Wait for the crows.

Because of sharding, we can’t use them at work. I haven’t thought of foreign keys in years…

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#114

Post by exikyut » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:57 AM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #101

29athrowaway wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to cook an egg, you can serve 1 request per second with PHP and use your CPU as heat source.

It's funny you say that. I was toying with PHP not long ago and managed to squeze 50k requests per second on an old server using a pure php server library called Workerman. And by squeze I mean copy 30 lines or so from their hello world tutorial and run: php start.php

I reimplemented the speedtest.net backend for fun a number of years ago, right around when it was transitioning from Flash to HTML5 and offered both.

I used a PHP process running in the background using stream_socket_server().

IIRC my computer had a 5Gbps connection to localhost using HTML5, and fractionally less using Flash :>

...which meant that PHP was writing to the web browser at 5Gbps.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#115

Post by ricardo81 » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

lancesells wrote: post #57

101008 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. I started with PHP when I was only 12 or 13 years old. Adding some logic inside your .html files (mostly includes, that were like magic back then[1]), renaming to .php and upload them to the server using FTP was so simple. A few years later, when I had to set up a lot of things to run Django I was surprised at how hard it was. PHP was simple to use, and to understand its logic, because it was embeded into…

I learned PHP / MYSQL back in the 2000 because I had a website with ~100 pages. The only reason I had back then was to not have to update ~100 files whenever I changed the navigation.

Pretty much the same for me. A migration from using MS Access and FP extensions to PHP/MySQL.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#116

Post by exikyut » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #48

n0mad01 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i guess "Personal Home Page" didnt sound sophisticated enough.

Professional Home Page instead

That breaks the fourth wall though.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#117

Post by sharken » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

While not written specifically for PHP, the Clean Code book from 2008 started to put the focus on Software Craftsmanship.

Too bad 10 years had to pass before Uncle Bob came along :)

http://cleancoder.com/

Clean Code, the book

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3735293-clean-code

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#118

Post by that_guy_iain » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

alberth wrote: post #11

It’s hard to explain just how much easier PHP made creating a dynamic web site back in the 90s / early 00s. You drop a file in your public web server folder and you’re done. Prior was CGI Perl scripts that hacked together how to access session and rest data. Or you had to develop in C. PHP had native support for the web. It also eliminate the need for an app server. I’m still not certain even today, if anything exist…

I was once asked in an interview for a PHP role what was my favourite feature of PHP and my answer was deployablitiy. In my opinion it can't really be matched on how easy it is to deploy. I can deploy any other language but it is never as easy as deploying PHP.

The guy who was interviewing me was sitting their shaking his head like that wasn't a valid answer.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#119

Post by that_guy_iain » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

aeontech wrote: post #52

I feel certain that an entire generation of careers started from Rasmus Lerdorf's little hobby project. Despite the fact that things like Perl Mason, Tcl web apps, and your bog standard CGI scripts already existed, nothing compared to PHP's wild grab bag of a standard library, and above all, the documentation with user-contributed notes and examples (not to mention that there was nothing similar/free in Windows-land)…

PHP 3 is what started the careers and it comes from Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski. I'm sure Rasmus Ledorf has pulled his weight throughout the entire thing but without the Zend Engine PHP would have never became what it is today.

Re: PHP 3.0 Final is out (1998)

#120

Post by lifeformed » Sat, May 22, 2021, 9:46 AM UTC

Everyone here is talking about how great PHP is, but why don't we consider it for use nowadays? I know some people still use it, but it's not really an option most people consider anymore. Is that just because it's not cool or modern anymore, or are there some fundamental problems with it that make it a non-starter?