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Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

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Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#201

Post by wvenable »

stan_rogers wrote: post #170
cletus wrote: post #48

I seriously groaned when I saw this post (title). I was expecting an elitist diatribe about PHP (because this is perennially popular amongst particular programmers) but that's not what this post is intended to be. Interestingly Jeff does take the usual potshots at PHP almost like he thinks he'll lose street cred if he doesn't but the basic message I agree with: if you want someone to stop doing something you consider…

> One thing that's wrong with PHP is all the bloated OO mega-frameworks people create on top of it to try and make it Java, Rails, whatever... The thing that really fries my brain is templating systems built over frameworks -- PHP is already a templating system, and building another one in PHP is just silliness of the highest order. I mean, sure, separate out the gnarlies and include or require them as necessary (but…

PHP is a terrible template engine; replacing it with something better is just obvious. I like to think of PHP's output mode as REPL for the web but not as a way of constructing templates in real-world applications.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#202

Post by danielweber »

cletus wrote: post #48

I seriously groaned when I saw this post (title). I was expecting an elitist diatribe about PHP (because this is perennially popular amongst particular programmers) but that's not what this post is intended to be. Interestingly Jeff does take the usual potshots at PHP almost like he thinks he'll lose street cred if he doesn't but the basic message I agree with: if you want someone to stop doing something you consider…

I simply disagree with the premise. PHP has a lot going for it

Did we read the same article? Jeff admits that PHP has a lot going for it and we should stop complaining about it.

The biggest thing PHP has going for it is that it is supported everywhere.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#203

Post by Maascamp »

louischatriot wrote: post #36
bobsy wrote: post #5

Sorry Jeff. The only thing broken with PHP is you (and other people like you). How much PHP do you use Jeff? Lets assume none. How is PHP hurting you? I mean seriously, how much contact do you even have with PHP? PHP is easy to learn, easy to make websites with. There are a tonne of paying jobs which require PHP. PHP runs a lot of websites. I am a PHP developer. I prefer Python but my PHP job pays me just fine. There…

It's true that PHP gets the job done, that it's easy to learn and very easy to set up. This makes for a perfect "introduction to the web" language. Which is why I began developping websites with it. But at some point, I felt like it was preventing me from really understanding what was going on behind the scenes, and I moved away from GRails and now nodejs. I don't hate PHP but I think Jeff's last point is good: we ne…

I'm sorry, you switched from writing your backend in PHP to writing it in Javascript because you believe Javascript let's you more fully understand what's going on behind the scenes?

I'm quite curious as to your understanding of how the web really works.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#204

Post by dougbarrett »

One thing that keeps me coming back to PHP after trying out RoR, Python (Django), node.js is the deployment.

All I have to do is create a new directory, create a new vhosts file run a few apache commands, reload apache and I'm done. In total, it should take less than a minute to get a directory set up for deployment.

With other languages, they haven't gotten the deployment part down as smoothly as the PHP/Apache experience.

Sure, I can go with Heroku or other IaaS solutions, but I want to run it on my server, I like being able to back up an entire directory that houses all of the sites and projects I'm currently working on, and not have to figure out how to use API's of different services.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#205

Post by [deleted] »

lukeschlather wrote: post #187
Retric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The setup time issue is an advantage of PHP over many languages. But, I will let you in on a little secret, once you know how to do it 'setup' time is a drop in the bucket on all platforms. And in the rare case where it might otherwise be hard, people setup a shell environment they can use as the template on any project and it just works. That said, there are popular languages worse than PHP for most web development…

PHP will always have an edge. If you want to do something stupidly simple, no other language can match. Now that's horrible code, it has a dozen bugs aside from the security issues, but I would go so far as to say when I need to do something stupid like that quickly, nothing matches the simplicity of PHP. It's downright elegant. Not to say you should write a webapp in it, but I think you're wrong; there's intrinsic o…

[deleted]

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#206

Post by wvenable »

mikeash wrote: post #164
troels wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I doubt it would ever become popular if it wasn't useful and easy to use. Actually, I think it is exactly because it's popular. All languages have odd ends, but you rarely hear people rant over Pythons lack of lambdas and weird explicit "self" parameter or Ruby's incomprehensible scoping rules. I'm betting that once they fall out of fashion, we will. And no, I disagree. The main sentiment of the article is nega…

I hear about them a lot. The difference is that PHP is so much worse. Yes, every language has warts. But PHP is the only popular language I know of which is essentially nothing but warts. Of course that's subjective, and people disagree, but there really does seem to be a real, qualitative difference between the warts on a mostly nice language like Python, and the ubiquitous bizarro world that makes up just about the…

> But PHP is the only popular language I know of which is essentially nothing but warts.

This is entirely untrue. PHP isn't even a bad language on the scale of actual bad languages. It has some warts but they don't really impede the development of good software. There are many languages that make developing good software nearly impossible.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#207

Post by bradleyland »

lukeschlather wrote: post #187
Retric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The setup time issue is an advantage of PHP over many languages. But, I will let you in on a little secret, once you know how to do it 'setup' time is a drop in the bucket on all platforms. And in the rare case where it might otherwise be hard, people setup a shell environment they can use as the template on any project and it just works. That said, there are popular languages worse than PHP for most web development…

PHP will always have an edge. If you want to do something stupidly simple, no other language can match. Now that's horrible code, it has a dozen bugs aside from the security issues, but I would go so far as to say when I need to do something stupid like that quickly, nothing matches the simplicity of PHP. It's downright elegant. Not to say you should write a webapp in it, but I think you're wrong; there's intrinsic o…

> Now that's horrible code, it has a dozen bugs aside from the security issues, but I would go so far as to say when I need to do something stupid like that quickly, nothing matches the simplicity of PHP. It's downright elegant.

So:

* It's horrible code

* It has bugs

* It's not secure

...

* It's downright elegant

See the discord there? It's not elegant at all. It's easy, but easy != elegant. It's just easy.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#208

Post by wvenable »

cooldeal wrote: post #53
Loic wrote: post #40

From the post: > build compelling alternatives and make sure these alternatives are equally pervasive, as easy to set up and use as possible. A bite later: > We've got a long way to go. [...] The best way to fix the PHP problem at this point is to make the alternatives so outstanding that the choice of the better hammer becomes obvious. Basically, Jeff just agreed that PHP is simply better than the rest. The problem…

>..my brother, without programming knowledge.. > He never complained about the "awfulness of PHP". As the article states, if all you know to use is a double clawed hammer, it looks like the best tool for the job.

The problem is if you have a garage full of power tools and know how to use them that it's unreasonable to let your 6 year old build a birdhouse with them unsupervised.

I'm looking into ASP.NET MVC for a project and if you walk through the "hello world" tutorials with that package they are 10 pages long and filled with lots of magic. As a developer, I understand the significance of that magic and it's long term purpose. But it's probably far from the best tool for the job if your project is simple.

The flaw here is perhaps the assumption that the best tool for the job is the same for everyone and the same for every task.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#209

Post by batista »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #152
kamaal wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately what many would define as 'better designed' doesn't always translate to useful software.

Can you give an example?

Any major websites done on Lisp, Smalltalk or Haskell?

Besides Viaweb?

Now count > 1m visits per day websites done in PHP.

Re: Coding Horror: The PHP Singularity

#210

Post by tomjen3 »

cletus wrote: post #161
jmvoodoo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask, because it's really been getting at me for a while honestly. How do your developers react to that? I mean, you guys are known for going after the best and the brightest. People who have worked hard to perfect their craft. These people tend to have strong opinions when it comes to language design. How do you get them from that point to "ok, now write some php code" ?

That's easy: the best recognize languages are just a means to an end. Language snobbery, in my experience, tends to be highly correlated with being a "wannabe" rather than "great" and a useful filter. You will find any number of C/C++ programmers who think you can't write anything in Java. Many Java programmers think you can't write anything (beyond 100 lines) in Python. Many Python programmers think you can't (or si…

Not all languages are equal. (if they are, why not just write everything in assembly?)
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