191–200 of 349 posts
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What tools? What server language today except PHP (and its forks) is actually designed for the web and works as the web was intended?
What server language today except PHP (and its forks) is actually designed for the web and works as the web was intended? The implication of the question is that there's something designed into PHP that makes it better for working with web things. Why does the language need to be designed to work with the web? That part of any language can be filled out with a framework quite easily, and arguably that means it's much…
This had tons of disadvantages.
Say CoolLang is such a language. Since is msall CoolLang has a micro standard library so has no DateTime or JSON, so you have a package manager and maybe 1 repo where 15 different JSON packages, you decide to use JSON_A but you also want to integrate with Amazon and they used JSON_B in their API and you also need to integrate with other API and this guys used JSON_A2 witch is an incompatible version of JSON_A. So now repeat for each web related function you have to decide for what package to use, if is compatible with whatever you use and review all it's dependencies, in the end you notice you depend on 100 packages and 3 years alter you have issues upgrading.
You maybe now will complain that JSON is included and the solution is to use the CoolFramework_V13 for CoolLang, with is incompatible with previous versions and is based on 100 packages that could explode when some dev decides he had a bad day and purch is package.
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...
I wish I was half as smart as he is.
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Totally agree. This is beyond taste or preference. Yes you can build a great app in PHP. But so you can in Kotlin or Ruby or ... Yes some have a career by starting with PHP. But that does not make it a good language for beginners. Same can be said (and to me is verrrry true) fro JavaScript. Language design matters. It shapes how you think about code. Talk to people who've learned AND USED many languages including som…
> Same can be said (and to me is verrrry true) fro JavaScript. Not if you use JS like Scheme: https://www.crockford.com/little.html In fact JS is much more pleasant to write than PHP, the main reason to move way from PHP after using it for over 10 years.
The majority of Gary Bernhardt's 2012 talk "wat"[0] is still relevant today with JavaScript. PHP's devs at least are actively trying to address the majority of issues people have had problems with, and have done so successfully for many of the issues it had.
In my opinion the only thing JavaScript has going for it over PHP is its ability to develop frontend and backend code using the same language, but then, you know, you'll need a million NPM dependencies if you pull in some of the simplest packages.
Until TypeScript takes over JavaScript I refuse to believe anyone who understands either languages fully prefers JS over PHP. I've yet to dabble in Deno, but I'm hoping that it also addresses much of the issues with JS, but I'm doubtful since it's also based on V8.
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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?
The problem is that the type system in TS can get crazy complex and has many uncommon features like structural typing. You need to have a really good mental model of how TS works to be able to make sense of what TS tries to tell you.
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What server language today except PHP (and its forks) is actually designed for the web and works as the web was intended? The implication of the question is that there's something designed into PHP that makes it better for working with web things. Why does the language need to be designed to work with the web? That part of any language can be filled out with a framework quite easily, and arguably that means it's much…
> I don't think there's a good reason to design a language specifically for web projects. If that's how PHP works these days (I haven't used PHP in a decade or so), I'd suggest that might be a bad thing. It's very rigid, and if the language gets anything wrong that compromises the design of every project that uses it. Languages should provide simple primitives that frameworks and libraries build on. That has always b…
With Python and any of the Python frameworks, it's two lines. And one is most likely not explicitly bringing in HTTP request parsing, but just connecting all the plumbing.
> With PHP, it's literally one-line of code.
In that narrow domain, few things are simpler than Cold Fusion. If you go further, the Zope application server offers lots of nice ways to iterate over datasets that involve almost zero code.
> As every language more or less looks like C today
You seriously need to play more with other languages. I suggest you learn one or more of the "weird" ones, such as APL (avoid the ASCII notation, dig deep into the symbols), Erlang, or Lisp. It'll bring in a lot of perspective for you.
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…
Totally agree. This is beyond taste or preference. Yes you can build a great app in PHP. But so you can in Kotlin or Ruby or ... Yes some have a career by starting with PHP. But that does not make it a good language for beginners. Same can be said (and to me is verrrry true) fro JavaScript. Language design matters. It shapes how you think about code. Talk to people who've learned AND USED many languages including som…
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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.
Thus it is naive to believe that by switching language you somehow magically will write better code but without doing any effort to improve yourself first.
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For me, a "beginner friendly language" has these properties: * A welcoming, helping and open community. * Built-in guidance or enforcement away from The Wrong Way and towards The Right Way. E.g. by making the former hard to do and the latter easy. * Ecosystem of high-quality, properly designed libraries and sample code. I see this in e.g. Rust. But e.g. JavaScript or PHP fail on all my three points. As does my main l…
#2: Strict Programming lang's. I often seen frustrate new programmers, specially young new programmers making them want to give up on programming all together so I don't know if I would call that beginner friendly, I certainly would not call rust beginner friendly I guess however we would need to define what a "beginner" target is, are we talking adults that want to learn programmed to change fields, or children want…
For example, going straight-to-web can be hard since it involves several different concepts HTML is not CSS is not JS is not backend code (mostly!). So it is sometimes better to teach the basics in a desktop or console app using a single language with a single paradigm. Once they understand that, you could introduce other abstractions and explain why sometimes strong type-checking is useful and other times it is unecessary and time-wasting.
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.
> But, really, I suggest using other tools. We have nicer tools now. Debatable really. Within the web development space the options are rather limited in my opinion. Options: * Spring based apps - Downside JVM is a Resource hog * Python, Ruby, etc - The web frameworks are in my opinion not as full featured. Same with CMS systems. Also requires more resources. Also have limited OO features. * Go, Rust, etc - Really go…
I have to disagree. The JVM is one of the biggest pluses and might be one of the most battle-tested pieces of software out there.
> The web frameworks are in my opinion not as full featured.
Again, have to disagree here. Django is by far one of the most full-featured, well-documented web frameworks out there (IMO).
> The tooling around PHP is really good and stable. The language itself, the downsides are very limited and the main one that remains valid is inconsistency of function parameters. The issues with bad code are generally the same ones that can be done in another langauge.
I agree here and I think with PHP 8 incorporating JIT compilation, I think the future looks bright for PHP. I think the biggest foot guns these days are to be found in the JS ecosystem...but again, IMO.