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PHP – The Right Way

phptherightway.com

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Re: PHP – The Right Way

#161

Post by jonwinstanley »

cies wrote: post #120
jonwinstanley wrote: post #63

PHP is actually a really decent option these days. And several libraries and frameworks built around it are flourishing.

> And several libraries and frameworks built around it are flourishing. Yes. > PHP is actually a really decent option these days. I beg to differ. What comparative options do you have experience with to base your claim on?

The main comparisons I have are building sites with Ruby/Rails and doing JS front ends attached to REST APIs. All three types of project have their own pros and cons.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#162

Post by pooya72 »

benjamir wrote: post #98

A language that changes the semantics of functions between minor versions has no "right way". "count()"less examples of crap. I have currently two weeks of code migration behind me because code running correctly on 7.0 fails on 7.3 -- while I see the reason for change was necessary I also see the hopelessness of rebuilding a flawed house with a fundament build on a pile of manure. And the good news given to me by a c…

Also a lot of the positive changes were do to the efforts of Nikita Popov[1] who has now left. It's led to the creation of the PHP foundation.[2] I haven't kept up to date with the foundation's efforts.

[1]:https://www.npopov.com/aboutMe.html

[2]:https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2021/11/the-php-foundati...

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#163

Post by ihateolives »

wraptile wrote: post #104
rbanffy wrote: post #34

I totally expected it to be a troll site. It's actually sensible advice. But, really, I suggest using other tools. We have nicer tools now.

As someone who had to learn a bit of PHP recently, I really don't see why would anyone pick it up these days other than vendor/business lock in. Laravel is great but there are hundreds of equally as great frameworks on dozens of more moderns and better though out languages: go, python, nim, ruby etc. A bunch of useful functions expanded into the default namespace is no longer that special.

> there are hundreds of equally as great frameworks on dozens of more moderns and better though out languages: go, python, nim, ruby etc

Have you actually tried using for Nim for building a scalable web service or even just complex websites with auth of your choice? Nim does not even come close to what PHP has to offer in terms of solutions for every need you may have.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#164

Post by azangru »

cardanome wrote: post #146
rbanffy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... I wouldn't recommend JavaScript. TypeScript is much nicer and removes a lot of the JS pitfalls.

Typescripts has an insanely complicated type system (at least for the low level of type safety you get), is dog slow to compile and has cryptic error messages. With PHP you can have your cake and eat it too. Have the productivity of a dynamic language, no compile step and a really smooth gradual typing experience with great tooling and linting. I really can't think of anything other that familiarity why one would pre…

> Typescript ... has cryptic error messages.

This is very strange to hear. Typescript error messages will show you a type mismatch and explain why one type isn't compatible with the other. What's an example of a cryptic typescript error message?

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#165

Post by nalekberov »

cardanome wrote: post #157
nalekberov wrote: post #103

The reason why people now care about PHP is that, decades ago they thought PHP would the right way to develop projects, now they are stuck, because they cannot get rid of PHP any more. If you look at any well grounded projects, they try to avoid PHP at all cost. Only handful amount people are responsible for core development. Decision are made based on "copying" other languages like Java, plus you always end up using…

> The reason why people now care about PHP is that, decades ago they thought PHP would the right way to develop projects, now they are stuck I worked on many greenfield projects in recent year where the conscious choice was made to use PHP. For the majority of projects NOT using PHP is basically throwing money in the trash. Best deployment story. Great ecosystem. > Decision are made based on "copying" other languages…

> I worked on many greenfield projects in recent year where the conscious choice was made to use PHP.

What kind of greenfield projects were they, and who was making those conscious choices? Without context it's just non-sense.

> For the majority of projects NOT using PHP is basically throwing money in the trash. Best deployment story. Great ecosystem.

What other technologies have you used in your experience, that came to conclusion?

> This is a really big strength. PHP is able to learn from other languages and when implementing features can avoid mistakes that they made.

Name features PHP avoided while copying.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#166

Post by diarrhea »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #135

PHP is a language with various features that might make it attractive to certain people: • CGI-like execution model when used for the web, making resource leaks very difficult and encouraging scalable design • not only integers and floats, but also strings, lists and dictionaries as mutable value types (copy-on-write) — this is a big difference from JavaScript and Python • unusually for a dynamic “scripting” language…

> not only integers and floats, but also strings, lists and dictionaries as mutable value types (copy-on-write)

Lists and dictionaries are also mutable in Python. Strings are not. With CoW, are your referring to garbage collection? (value that is no longer assigned to a name will eventually be purged). That would be independent of (im)mutability, so I'm not sure I understand.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#167

Post by kilburn »

benjamir wrote: post #98

A language that changes the semantics of functions between minor versions has no "right way". "count()"less examples of crap. I have currently two weeks of code migration behind me because code running correctly on 7.0 fails on 7.3 -- while I see the reason for change was necessary I also see the hopelessness of rebuilding a flawed house with a fundament build on a pile of manure. And the good news given to me by a c…

I was curious about this rant since I'm maintaning a number of PHP projects and I haven't had any issues with "count".

In the Changelog section of the "count" docs at https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.count.php we find:

> 7.2.0 - count() will now yield a warning on invalid countable types passed to the value parameter.

So in 7.2.0 they started raising a warning in cases where the application was doing a stupid thing (calling count on a non-countable object). Notice that PHP's warnings won't stop execution by default. The expected side-effect here is that you get a warning in the logs and everything keeps working normally. Of course, many development setups halt execution on warnings, but this is a decision that devs make to "force" them to writte better code, not something enforced by PHP itself.

> 8.0.0 - count() will now throw TypeError on invalid countable types passed to the value parameter.

In the next major version, they turned the warning into an error. Pretty understandable way to improve the language I would say. Of course it would've been better if this was an error from the beginning, but given a mistake was made here, this is definitely the best way to correct it I can think of.

I'm sorry it took time for you to fix the legacy apps you've inherited. However, calling this out as an example of bad programming language evolution seems very wrong to me. I for one would LOVE that all languages and libraries in my project's dependency chains where as dilligent as in this example.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#168

Post by nalekberov »

archerx wrote: post #158
nalekberov wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but why would you use poor tool in the first place?

What is your experience to make such ignorant statements?

I will just leave these here:

https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

https://software-gunslinger.tumblr.com/post/47131406821/php-...

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#169

Post by pritambarhate »

berkes wrote: post #88
akie wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Why do you presume this is "hearsay PHP hatred"? I (not parent) have PHP hatred. It is fuelled by decades of PHP development and -exposure. My hatred is based on failing projects, missed deadlines, burnouts, money stolen, severe downtime, and companies going bankrupt. PHP had a role (not the primary, mind you!) in all of them.

>> My hatred is based on failing projects, missed deadlines, burnouts, money stolen, severe downtime, and companies going bankrupt.

One can find example of this in almost all the languages. Most of the time mismanaged requirements, bad project planing, bad financial management are the issues for most of the things you have listed rather than the choice of programming language.

Re: PHP – The Right Way

#170

Post by cletus »

benjamir wrote: post #98

A language that changes the semantics of functions between minor versions has no "right way". "count()"less examples of crap. I have currently two weeks of code migration behind me because code running correctly on 7.0 fails on 7.3 -- while I see the reason for change was necessary I also see the hopelessness of rebuilding a flawed house with a fundament build on a pile of manure. And the good news given to me by a c…

I assume then that you disqualify Python for the same reason?

Python 3.x has decided that breaking changes in minor releases is fine. My favourite: string prefixes (eg s'foo', u'foo') were legal in 2.x, removed in 3.0, added back in 3.3. There are other subtle breakages (eg open() flags).

Hating on PHP is a tired cliche at this point.

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