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PHP: the quiet powerhouse

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Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#61

Post by Killswitch »

Here's an idea.. If PHP is so bad.. Don't use it. Simple as that. Let the people who want to use it... There's absolutely very minimal things wrong with the language. Everyone's quick to compare it with Python or Rails or something else saying "PHP does this wrong that Python does right" well, if PHP did everything the same way as Python, Rails, or something else, when what makes it different? Who wants to use a language that doesn't have some severe difference?

It's annoying seeing people waste their breath on arguing why PHP is so bad... Especially when many people/companies have proven PHP is good and can be scaled and used on high trafficked sites, yet 90% of the arguments are how it doesn't scale.

Just because you have used Wordpress or built a quit todo app in PHP that took you 5 minutes and that's the extent of your usage with the language, doesn't make OR break the language.

Quit complaining and let PHP users use PHP, and you continue using whatever the language you use is.

Signed, A Python, PHP, and Node.js developer.

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#62

Post by raquo »

jonathansizz wrote: post #25
raquo wrote: post #22

[off-topic] If PHP and Javascript are the only programming languages you know, you really should experiment with at least one or two others. It comes easier than expected. For example, check out http://www.diveintopython.net/toc/index.html . You can't know what you're missing out on until you try something new.

But if you already know PHP and Javascript, why not try branching out a bit instead of learning Python, which is very similar overall? How about a lispy language like Racket, or a statically typed functional language like OCaml, or a 'big' mainstream applications language like Java?

That's the point. Python is similar to php/js (which is why it's easy to pick up), but in contrast to them it is extremely well designed (imho). You suddenly understand how many of the quirks you have to go through every day coding in php/js are in fact artifacts of these two inconsistent poorly designed (imho) languages rather than programming as a whole.

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#63

Post by lucperkins »

Killswitch wrote: post #61

Here's an idea.. If PHP is so bad.. Don't use it. Simple as that. Let the people who want to use it... There's absolutely very minimal things wrong with the language. Everyone's quick to compare it with Python or Rails or something else saying "PHP does this wrong that Python does right" well, if PHP did everything the same way as Python, Rails, or something else, when what makes it different? Who wants to use a lang…

Nice to see PHP get some love from polyglots!

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#64

Post by davidlumley »

It's interesting seeing so many people defending PHP by suggesting that because Facebook use it, it's good enough for anyone. From what I understand, Facebook continue to use PHP because it's heavily embedded in all of their systems, and they continue to develop with it despite other languages being more attractive? ( see http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-... )

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#65

Post by Killswitch »

lucperkins wrote: post #63
Killswitch wrote: post #61

Here's an idea.. If PHP is so bad.. Don't use it. Simple as that. Let the people who want to use it... There's absolutely very minimal things wrong with the language. Everyone's quick to compare it with Python or Rails or something else saying "PHP does this wrong that Python does right" well, if PHP did everything the same way as Python, Rails, or something else, when what makes it different? Who wants to use a lang…

Nice to see PHP get some love from polyglots!

Thanks, I am also an App/PHPfog user too. ;)

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#66

Post by lucperkins »

dr42 wrote: post #54
Joeri wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realities of roundtrip time won't go away. Serverside rendering will always delivers worse responsiveness. Blame physics.

History has shown that with time these numbers shrink, there will come a time when the difference is between two very small numbers and that won't be a factor. It almost is. A couple of years. 4G LTE for example.

You could be right about these numbers becoming meaningless. But in the meantime, there is a noticeable difference, and that can mean life or death in the jam-packed web dev market that we see today. If cramming as much application logic as possible into the front side continues to shave off milliseconds or even seconds in some cases, then I think that trend will continue.

That said, I hope you're right. A world in which front vs. back end didn't matter with respect to time would be one in which developers were free to reveal far less on the client side, and that would be a victory indeed!

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#67

Post by lucperkins »

snorkel wrote: post #34
gnaritas wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Server-side view rendering is on its way out. So this is not a real advantage. No it isn't, client side view rendering is just experiencing a faddish phase; it'll fade. It'll never overtake server side rendering on the web.

The seductive advantage of server side rendering is centralized control of what all clients see. Whenever you push too much business logic down to the clients you have to contend with how to ensure all of those clients are using the same logic at all times.

Exactly. Correspondingly, my hope (along with one of the folks below) is that advances in hardware will obliterate any speed difference and enable the back end to be king.

Time will tell.

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#68

Post by spahl »

dr42 wrote: post #58
spahl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"gets shit done very very quickly" In what way does PHP help to get things up and running faster than other languages?

Have you used PHP? Spend 5 minutes with it and you'll understand; a very expressive language, simple to learn, massive library of functions, massive number of examples to copy, no framework to learn, no syntactical overhead like in Java, practically everything works with, or has bindings for PHP. I prefer to work in python, but I don't much care anymore, each language has it's strengths and weakness' but PHP most def…

Yes you can get up and running quickly with php, but my comment was mostly about the fact that it is not much slower in other languages (most of the time not slower at all).

And yes I did a lot of PHP but that was 5-6 years ago. I know things have changed a lot since then but the language still has a lot of the same flaws.

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#69

Post by lucperkins »

larrys wrote: post #47
techiferous wrote: post #23

If you are just starting out as a web developer and aren't planning on changing careers anytime soon, the #1 language you should learn is JavaScript. It, or languages that compile to it, will still be in fashion in 5 or even 10 years. That's because the web is shifting to thick clients, and JavaScript is the only choice in browsers. JavaScript is also finding its way into server-side code (Node.js). "I think PHP is t…

"Ruby is by no means inferior to PHP, and you will get paid more per hour to program in Ruby." Any decision you make to learn anything based on payback has to factor in what will happen if more people choose to learn something. If more people learn Ruby because it pays better (let's assume that is correct) then supply and demand could equalize and the pay will go down. Right now if pay is high for Ruby it means most…

Right right right. I would add this: Ruby could well be considered "passé" someday (history tells us it necessarily will be), and the Rubyists of the future would really bristle at the suggestion that what they're doing is worth less simply because the market says it is.

Re: PHP: the quiet powerhouse

#70

Post by daeken »

dr42 wrote: post #54
Joeri wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realities of roundtrip time won't go away. Serverside rendering will always delivers worse responsiveness. Blame physics.

History has shown that with time these numbers shrink, there will come a time when the difference is between two very small numbers and that won't be a factor. It almost is. A couple of years. 4G LTE for example.

The issue in this case isn't (primarily) bandwidth, it's latency. Cell connections have terrible latency, universally, and there are a lot of problems to solve before that stops being true.
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