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Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

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141–150 of 341 posts

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#141

We get it, you don't like PHP. Don't use it. Nobody forces you to use it... If someone does, it's most likely a client, and that's nobodies fault but your own for seeking clients that want PHP work done. And if that's the case, you shouldn't be scolding PHP for keeping food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But yes, we get it, you don't like it. Move the fuck on. These "This is what's wrong with PHP" articles…

He's really one to talk.... ASP.NET is so amazing, right?

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#142

When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. So create. - why the lucky stiff

I will always upvote/retweet/point and jump at this quote when I see it. One of the most important lessons anyone can learn.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is python or ruby too hard for your dad to learn? If anything I would think something like ruby would be even easier than php since things are a bit more consistent. I just don't see how PHP is more approachable, especially compared to the supposed ease of ruby on rails.

Try getting Django to run on various hosting sites. Dreamhost - been with them for ten years, gave up trying to get Django to work after a month of poring thru the docs, trying to get tab A into slot 3x. Mind you, I really like Python, but it's not worth the effort for a couple more years. PHP is the A-10 of languages. It's a slow, ugly and easy target. It works pretty much everywhere.

Django + dreamhost sucks, I concur.

Try these guys (they also do rails and other stuff as well): webfaction.com

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#144
post #73

Ok, so here it goes. I haven't commented on this site for over a year. Full disclosure: I am an average programmer compared to many here. I come to this site to improve my self and read about what brilliant and amazing things you all do. Now you have a reference. I use PHP on a daily basis, have been for years. I am a freelance developer who has been able to carve out a living with a lot of hard work and a lot of luc…

> It just seems so ivory tower to me sometimes.

More like a game between different sports teams. Are you going to go to the fans of the opposing team for an honest opinion about yours? Are you shocked they have nasty things to say about your team? Or that you have nasty thoughts about theirs?

What gets to me is this air of objectivity ... that part is most certainly ivory tower and is arrogant to boot.

What I want to read is a critical article on PHP by somebody who uses PHP and loves it. That would be useful.

A hit piece by somebody on a Microsoft stack is just boring!

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#145
As fun and easy as it is to take potshots at PHP, and as much as I am against personally working on any medium-sized or larger project that is written in PHP, I feel like a bit of a hypocrite because I probably owe my career to PHP.

One "feature" of PHP that really no other language or platform has touched is the vast amount of pre-existing software that is out there written in it that you can quickly and easily tweak to suit your needs. This is how I got started programming in the mid-to-late 90's as a kid in high school.

There was some auction software written in PHP, and I setup an auction site and spent tons of nights making small tweaks to the software to make it a really cool and fully-featured auction site. Nobody listed a damn thing on the site, of course, but I was hooked.

- Bad habits can be unlearned (I've unlearned enough to know)

- You can go back and learn CS basics

- You can gain an appreciation for well-designed languages and tradeoffs in design

But it is really, really hard to replicate that awesome feeling when you start out with some substantial piece of software and are able to incrementally make it better - making bigger and bigger changes as you learn more and become confident. The fact that so much open-source PHP software exists, the development cycle is so short, and it is so quick and easy to host makes it pretty good for that. Honestly, as much as I like Java now, if I'd started out trying to use it, who knows what I'd be doing now.

As crappy as the language is, it is good enough at a lot of things. You won't "kill" PHP by making a better language any more than you would beat CraigsList by designing a better UI.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#146
post #141

We get it, you don't like PHP. Don't use it. Nobody forces you to use it... If someone does, it's most likely a client, and that's nobodies fault but your own for seeking clients that want PHP work done. And if that's the case, you shouldn't be scolding PHP for keeping food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But yes, we get it, you don't like it. Move the fuck on. These "This is what's wrong with PHP" articles…

He's really one to talk.... ASP.NET is so amazing, right?

All languages have their purpose, use the one you want and prefer. I'm getting sick of people bashing other languages because they don't like it. Especially people who have never really used the language...

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#147
post #38
post #19

PHP is broken in many little aspects but if you use a high quality framework, it's quite enjoyable to work with. The main gripes I have with it are in the details, like: You can't do: $something->doStuff()[0] if(empty($something->doStuff())) Overload fucking functions. Fuck. What sucks: The namespace separator. The naming conventions of the core functions. The speed. But, overall it works and elegant solutions can be…

PHP has array dereferencing, closures, and array short syntax since 5.4. $func = function() { return ['a', 'b', 'c']; }; echo $func()[0];

Nice to hear that they fixed those.

I just read about the new closures. Too bad, scoping is still somewhat broken: You have to explicitly declare the variables you want to use from the outer scope.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#148

This rant boils down to a tweet "If you don't like PHP then use another language or build a better one". What a revolutionary concept! That has worked wonders for languages since. Except not one has come out that is as simple as PHP thus PHP will continue to exist. Everyone that invents a language now focuses on abstract concepts that do not help the everyday developer do anything useful. Is it so shocking it's still…

> If you don't like PHP then use another language or build a better one ... Everyone that invents a language ...

But he said nothing about "inventing" a language. In fact said very clearly that he wanted to take an existing language and add to it - particularly the things that PHP does do well.

from TFA:

> "to buff up a open source language ecosystem such that it can truly compete with PHP in ease of installation and deployment"

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#149
post #35

I've been coding for nearly 30 years and have seen this rant for every major language I've coded in. The reality is there is no perfect tool even in construction as Jeff tries to draw parallels to you will find that many different tools are required for many different situations. Often a hammer can be used to make a hole in a wall and other times you use a saw to cut a nail head off and just pound it into the wall be…

Why is python or ruby too hard for your dad to learn? If anything I would think something like ruby would be even easier than php since things are a bit more consistent. I just don't see how PHP is more approachable, especially compared to the supposed ease of ruby on rails.

Stop comparing PHP to Rails.

Compare Ruby to PHP and something like Symfony to Rails.

Learning Ruby: approachable. Learning PHP: approachable. Learning Rails/Symfony: run for the hills (for newbie programmers).

Languages !- Frameworks (at least for the purposes of this comparison)

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#150
post #141

We get it, you don't like PHP. Don't use it. Nobody forces you to use it... If someone does, it's most likely a client, and that's nobodies fault but your own for seeking clients that want PHP work done. And if that's the case, you shouldn't be scolding PHP for keeping food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But yes, we get it, you don't like it. Move the fuck on. These "This is what's wrong with PHP" articles…

He's really one to talk.... ASP.NET is so amazing, right?

> ASP.NET is so amazing, right?

ASP.Net MVC version 4. Yeah, actually I'd say that it is. But YMMV. All I'd say is avoid commenting on frameworks that you don't know much about.

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