PHP Addiction

On PHP:

This discussion seems to be missing a key factor: context.

I seriously dislike PHP and its inconsistent, unpredictable features and libraries. I avoid PHP whenever reasonable/possible. I also avoid talking to mean, verbose or dumb people whenever reasonable/possible. But sometimes I just gotta do it...

So I use PHP, Python, [Java|Coffee]script, Ruby, Django, Pyramid, Express, Wordpress, Joomla, or whatever else is the right tool for the context/job.

In the context of building a 100M request/month API server, I used Python + Django. I would never have used PHP and I consider it a serious mistake to build large scale systems in PHP. Of course, others would choose Ruby, Clojure, Java, Scala, etc and those are all reasonable answers. I happened to be able to get the thing up and running fastest and most effectively in Python + Django.

In the context of currently re-building a client site that needs social features, a small CMS, etc, we're using PHP and Wordpress. I would never have used Python + Django because the client would not know how to host it and whomever is called on to fix a template is going to have to set up a Python stack, learn git and SSH, log into a VPS, etc in order to tweak anything.

Blends are good, too. We recently worked with a client where the website and application were built in PHP/Wordpress, but their API was Python. The "application" was basically a handful of Wordpress templates that pulled API data. They got the nice little CMS interface of Wordpress which made the website admins happy, but the developers got to do the heavy lifting in Python. Their anti-PHP developers were quite happy with the arrangement.

On Marco's post:

    If you can get PHP programmers to agree that they need to stop using it, 
    the first question that comes up is what to use instead, and they’re met 
    with a barrage of difficult choices and 
    wildly different opinions and recommendations.

Yep and that's true of everyone who's ever behind a curve when the curve is shifting. The ice cutters knew about refrigeration, but couldn't adapt. And the curve doesn't always just shift up or down; sometimes it branches crazily and the only way to adapt is to jump into the fray. Even then bad things can happen: Kodak predicted digital cameras, jumped into the fray and basically invented everything and they still got crushed by the digital camera transition.

I think the tension for PHP developers is in understanding on a personal-level how and when to make the transition to newer languages. Unfortunately, many seem to ignore the possibility that a transition is underway.

If all someone knew was PHP, maybe they would struggle to learn something else, but in my case, if I immerse myself in something and learn it and use it, it's not going to take me years to get productive with it. Especially given the limited things that PHP can do, learning to do those in python/ruby/C#/Go took... trivial amounts of time. With the benefit of more functionality and a sane API. (and in two cases, static typing)

Alternatively, if all I knew was PHP, I would understand why someone would be scared of learning something new. I mean, look up and down this thread. Everyone thinks a one-liner hello world is the pinnacle of the ultimate web dev language. Because real web frameworks require an http handler, they assume it's more work or harder. To me, it seems that many in the "PHP is easier!" crowd are too scared or lazy to take the time to learn something else and realize that better separation of concerns and tooling actually allows for faster and safer development.

In Python, I've always used string substitution. I've never understood the need for a special templating system when it's already built into the language:

    template = """%(greeting)s"""
    parts = {'greeting': "Hello, World!"}
    page = template % parts

I create my site-wide template in a module and never have to look at it again, so my application code is mostly logic. When I have to work on PHP or Coldfusion, I don't understand how people can bear to have the logic hidden in a markup language that's mixed up with another markup language. Many can't, and that's why there are templating engines for what are essentially template-based languages.

| Who cares? Honestly?

Exactly, who cares?

> You're trying to convince yourself that you made the right choice, the right investment.

> That's sad.

Err, huh? What's with the preachy tone and the presumptuos attitude there? No, I don't need to convince myself, nor am I looking for confirmation - I know that I'm happier coding in Python than I was coding in PHP, that I get more done in less time, that I've vastly increased the average reusability of code that I write, and that it blows up less in production.

> Have confidence in yourself. You made the right choice for yourself and let others choose for themselves.

That's not what this is about. It's about how I didn't make a conscious choice to use PHP back then - nor would I have if I had been in a position to make a choice. I believe the same is true for many others, so how do we get to a point where they have the facts to make a choice?

> Python on the other hand ... aside from Google, who's using it at a massive scale? Even Google has been shifting to Java for a long time.

Shrug. It's you who's playing up the PHP vs. Python angle here, really -- for me there's plenty of stuff out there that's better than PHP, not just Python.

> If you're convinced that there is no proper application for PHP, then you're not even trying to be objective ... you're just trying to make yourself feel better about the choices you made.

Actually I think there are circumstances where PHP is the right choice, though it's mostly a matter of market considerations, certainly not technical strength.