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An Internet of PHP

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Re: An Internet of PHP

#31

Post by mattnewton »

dvdkon wrote: post #28
cloudking wrote: post #4

At the end of the day if your software works and users like it, does the programming language even matter?

Maybe not for the user, at least not directly, but developer experience is something to optimise for. PHP is also the one language whose choice can make an impact on users' experience, since its shared-nothing (sans caches) runtime model is almost CGI-like and can, in my experience, lead to higher latency, as each request simply does more. Maybe some experienced PHP devs can tell me how they combat this?

The most common defense I hear here is that the inefficiency just never mattered.. and if it did it was because the product was a blockbuster success and you could hire to rewrite the slow parts or adopt hack or whatever.

Re: An Internet of PHP

#32

Post by 9dev »

dvdkon wrote: post #28
cloudking wrote: post #4

At the end of the day if your software works and users like it, does the programming language even matter?

Maybe not for the user, at least not directly, but developer experience is something to optimise for. PHP is also the one language whose choice can make an impact on users' experience, since its shared-nothing (sans caches) runtime model is almost CGI-like and can, in my experience, lead to higher latency, as each request simply does more. Maybe some experienced PHP devs can tell me how they combat this?

There are multiple options by now. For one, PHP got a JIT compiler a while ago. That, in combination with the existing opcode cache, actually causes PHP to outperform its interpreted competitors in most cases.

Additionally, there are several application server strategies, sometimes with a process manager that keeps preloaded request workers at hand, sometimes hosting an event loop, and sometimes a request worker that gets partially reset after handling requests. This yields performance comfortably comparable to optimized Node.js apps.

In general, PHP has a highly optimized runtime, and we didn’t even really touch caching yet. Trust me when I say performance is not one of the problems PHP poses :)

Re: An Internet of PHP

#33

Post by nikanj »

nunodonato wrote: post #22

"PHP is dead" is dead. The amount of people praising PHP these days is quite high and increasing. Of course I may also be in a bubble (of php devs), but I have seen a constant increase from JS-people starting to look (and in some cases, convert to) php. Also, many new youtube videos highlighting the new stuff in the language, how modern it is, etc. Honestly, anyone that blindly criticizes or dismisses php these days,…

It’s like meeting someone in 2023 who hates Micro$oft WinBLOWZ. Have they been stuck in stasis for 20 years? What other values from the 9/11 era do they hang on to?

Re: An Internet of PHP

#34

Post by monkey_monkey »

dvdkon wrote: post #28
cloudking wrote: post #4

At the end of the day if your software works and users like it, does the programming language even matter?

Maybe not for the user, at least not directly, but developer experience is something to optimise for. PHP is also the one language whose choice can make an impact on users' experience, since its shared-nothing (sans caches) runtime model is almost CGI-like and can, in my experience, lead to higher latency, as each request simply does more. Maybe some experienced PHP devs can tell me how they combat this?

If you need it, Swoole and Roadrunner exist

Re: An Internet of PHP

#35

Post by bennyp101 »

gleenn wrote: post #7
jalapenos wrote: post #6

I've always liked PHP. You wouldn't pick it for your job interview's coding test if you had a choice (Python all the way there), but it's so intertwined with the internet and what we've learned about programming over the years. First mover advantage kind of deal. And I've never had to deal with ESM/CJS/AMD whatever module nonsense with PHP. No transpiling anything, just edit and refresh. And so many useful functions…

Bad rap comes from the inconsistency of the early APIs. The ability to interleave code and HTML was also tacky and never taken seriously but I think touted highly by some as a killer feature. The language is very unplanned, go look at an equality chart for PHP, it makes JavaScript blush as well.

"The ability to interleave code and HTML was also tacky and never taken seriously" - That was the whole point of it! The day I found PHP and could leave behind the cgi-bin and SSI it became my favourite thing - and has paid me well for the last 20+ years :)

Re: An Internet of PHP

#37

Post by tommica »

jalapenos wrote: post #6

I've always liked PHP. You wouldn't pick it for your job interview's coding test if you had a choice (Python all the way there), but it's so intertwined with the internet and what we've learned about programming over the years. First mover advantage kind of deal. And I've never had to deal with ESM/CJS/AMD whatever module nonsense with PHP. No transpiling anything, just edit and refresh. And so many useful functions…

I've gotten a lot of value by being able to go to a library in my vendor folder, and add some var_dumps in there to figure out where my code is going wrong. The way the dependencies works is magnificent.

Re: An Internet of PHP

#38

Post by dash2 »

nikanj wrote: post #33
nunodonato wrote: post #22

"PHP is dead" is dead. The amount of people praising PHP these days is quite high and increasing. Of course I may also be in a bubble (of php devs), but I have seen a constant increase from JS-people starting to look (and in some cases, convert to) php. Also, many new youtube videos highlighting the new stuff in the language, how modern it is, etc. Honestly, anyone that blindly criticizes or dismisses php these days,…

It’s like meeting someone in 2023 who hates Micro$oft WinBLOWZ. Have they been stuck in stasis for 20 years? What other values from the 9/11 era do they hang on to?

This reminds me of the sysadmin at a Greek university I once worked in back in 2009 or so. He had installed Linux at every one of the computer labs' computers. He'd changed the startup software to describe Windows as Windows UnProfessional. The default was Linux, and it would boot within 3 seconds unless you quickly changed it. Under Linux he'd included all the Gnome 2 window manager flash, including spinning cubes and windows that went up in flames when you closed them.... He convinced my friend to install Linux on her laptop. Good times.

Re: An Internet of PHP

#39

Post by chx »

gleenn wrote: post #7
jalapenos wrote: post #6

I've always liked PHP. You wouldn't pick it for your job interview's coding test if you had a choice (Python all the way there), but it's so intertwined with the internet and what we've learned about programming over the years. First mover advantage kind of deal. And I've never had to deal with ESM/CJS/AMD whatever module nonsense with PHP. No transpiling anything, just edit and refresh. And so many useful functions…

Bad rap comes from the inconsistency of the early APIs. The ability to interleave code and HTML was also tacky and never taken seriously but I think touted highly by some as a killer feature. The language is very unplanned, go look at an equality chart for PHP, it makes JavaScript blush as well.

> The language is very unplanned, go look at an equality chart for PHP, it makes JavaScript blush as well.

This has been fixed in PHP 8. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/string_to_number_comparison

Re: An Internet of PHP

#40

Post by nunodonato »

jbverschoor wrote: post #26
nunodonato wrote: post #22

"PHP is dead" is dead. The amount of people praising PHP these days is quite high and increasing. Of course I may also be in a bubble (of php devs), but I have seen a constant increase from JS-people starting to look (and in some cases, convert to) php. Also, many new youtube videos highlighting the new stuff in the language, how modern it is, etc. Honestly, anyone that blindly criticizes or dismisses php these days,…

Well the problem is that "the internet" (google, stackoverflow) does not (by default) filter out any old/obsolete information. People googling for solutions will get 30+ year old "advise" on how to do certain things / use certain libraries etc. Especially StackOverflow should be incorporating a major version number for which the question is valid. So yes, "PHP is still dead" as long as you get the same old advise.

that's very true. But it is true for PHP as it is for any other language or tech that is at least a decade old. Interesting fact: chatgpt can recognize old stuff and give better recommendations
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