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PHP is much better than what you think

fabien.potencier.org

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Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#321

Post by irahul »

igouy wrote: post #271
irahul wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Both CPython and MRI are slow - if you need computational speed, use something else. But when your are comparing them to each other, CPython is faster. I don't know where you are getting that significantly faster bit from. Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. So here goes: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...

>>Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. 1) You seem to be using "unscientific" as a nothing more than an insult. 2) Your conclusion "this one is as good as any" doesn't follow from your premise that "most benchmarks are unscientific" -- "this one" might well be different from "most benchmarks". 3) If your conclusion was correct then that wouldn't mean that the benchmark was good, just th…

>>Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any.>1) You seem to be using "unscientific" as a nothing more than an insult.

More like preemptively declaring I don't want to deal with HN crowd replying with "but benchmarks are worthless".

> 2) Your conclusion "this one is as good as any" doesn't follow from your premise that "most benchmarks are unscientific" -- "this one" might well be different from "most benchmarks".

IMO shootout benchmarks are better than random benchmarks on the web as they detail the testing environment, provide the source code and can be re-created

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#322

Post by anthonyb »

ericingram wrote: post #236
anthonyb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - "shit" being the operative word there. The problem I've found is that there's a kind of anti Python paradox at work with PHP: Better than 95% of the PHP jobs out there are horrible scut work for companies that don't give a shit about quality or decent development, even though it costs them an arm and a leg maintaining their steaming legacy codebase. The 5% that you'd actually want to work for need to have a se…

> "Better than 95% of the PHP jobs out there are horrible scut work for companies that don't give a shit about quality or decent development" Show me your data? You couldn't be more wrong about the companies using PHP. The last startup I worked at in San Francisco, well funded and very successful, used PHP. I was approached by many well known names all using PHP, most of them exciting new companies working with edge…

> Show me your data?

Bitter personal experience? I'm a Python dev, but figured PHP and Python would be good to add to my resume. I picked them up pretty quickly, but after working for a couple of PHP places and interviewing at many others, I swore off them and went back to Python.

Also, sounds like your startup was one of the 5%, rather than the 95%.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#323

Post by kapowaz »

jasonlotito wrote: post #234
kapowaz wrote: post #19

It's like he didn't actually read Jeff Atwood's article, or if he did, he entirely missed the point. It wasn't a rant about PHP; it was a rant about people ranting about PHP ! So much heat; so little light.

This wasn't a response to Jeff Atwood's article. It was a response to all the articles, with Atwood's being the "straw."

Really?

> Rants about PHP are everywhere, and they even come from smart guys. When Jeff Atwood wrote yet another rant about PHP…

That's not how it reads to me.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#324

Post by retrogradeorbit »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #306
freshhawk wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP allows a lot of people to be productive. Python/Ruby/whatever language higher up the power curve allows fewer people to be more productive. Is it really that hard to understand that different levels of expertise suit different tools?

Then these threads are like carpenters arguing that hammers are stupid because we've invented nailguns.

I agree. Once you've gone nailgun you never go back. I haven't used a hammer on my woodworking in years.

And what about cross dowels! Don't get me started!

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#325

Post by igouy »

irahul wrote: post #321
igouy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. 1) You seem to be using "unscientific" as a nothing more than an insult. 2) Your conclusion "this one is as good as any" doesn't follow from your premise that "most benchmarks are unscientific" -- "this one" might well be different from "most benchmarks". 3) If your conclusion was correct then that wouldn't mean that the benchmark was good, just th…

>>Since most benchmarks are unscientific, this one is as good as any. >1) You seem to be using "unscientific" as a nothing more than an insult. More like preemptively declaring I don't want to deal with HN crowd replying with "but benchmarks are worthless". > 2) Your conclusion "this one is as good as any" doesn't follow from your premise that "most benchmarks are unscientific" -- "this one" might well be different f…

>>More like preemptively declaring I don't want to deal with HN crowd replying with "but benchmarks are worthless"It's a dirty job but it still has to be done ;-)

Let them reply and then answer them.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#326

Post by [deleted] »

freshhawk wrote: post #298
tomelders wrote: post #60

Hacker News really doesn't like PHP. There's a whole lot of blind prejudice in this thread Arguments against PHP are as futile as arguments in support of PHP. It's a programming language. The only thing that matters is the person using it. I'm sure Ruby, Node and Go are super duper awesome in a lot of academic ways, but unless we're talking about awesome things that have been made with them, it's just blah blah blah…

> I'm sure Ruby, Node and Go are super duper awesome in a lot of academic ways I find Hacker News loves PHP in comparison to most places developers hang out. Mostly because of the prevalence of the kind of anti-intellectualism on display in your comment. Some of us have used PHP for years AND many other languages and have a basis for comparison.

[deleted]

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#327

Post by lonnyk »

papsosouid wrote: post #256
lonnyk wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet the threads are always full of these apologists, claiming PHP is awesome because facebook uses it, or because every cheap shitty webhost has it installed. Never making any actual argument that PHP is good That is the argument. PHP is good b/c it allows a lot of people to be productive. C is probably a better written language then Ruby, but it doesn't matter b/c if you're doing web development you're not goi…

>That is the argument. PHP is good b/c it allows a lot of people to be productive That isn't an argument, because every other scripting language also allows a lot of people to be productive. If A is equal to B in one respect, and far worse in dozens of other respects, pointing out the one way it is equal doesn't make an argument that A is good.

> If A is equal to B in one respect, and far worse in dozens of other respects, pointing out the one way it is equal doesn't make an argument that A is good.

I didn't state it was better then any other language. I simply made a case that it is a good language.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#328

Post by Xylakant »

jasonlotito wrote: post #312
Xylakant wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right. I could write a short shell wrapper as well - but why do I have to? I don't have to with pip or bundler.

Uh, no. See, those instructions are from the getting started page. Why do you have to? Because, you can install composer just by downloading it and running it. You dont need to "install" it. This is handy on shared hosting environments where you won't have root. How can I install bundler on a shared hosting environment like composer?

Well, yes. I can install bundler on a shared hosting environment where I don't have root. In fact, pretty much all my installations are non-root installations. Still, I don't have to manually move it around, symlink or shell-wrap it.

It's not a deal-breaker or a major nuisance that I have to do it, it just fits in what I'm used from php: it gets the job done, but feels unpolished.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#329

Post by ericingram »

wpietri wrote: post #310
ericingram wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a big success for Wordpress and PHP to me

In the sense that McDonald's is a big success for American cuisine, sure.

That's a decent analogy, since McDonald's is a huge success and a model of efficiency in business.

Re: PHP is much better than what you think

#330

Post by papsosouid »

lonnyk wrote: post #327
papsosouid wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is the argument. PHP is good b/c it allows a lot of people to be productive That isn't an argument, because every other scripting language also allows a lot of people to be productive. If A is equal to B in one respect, and far worse in dozens of other respects, pointing out the one way it is equal doesn't make an argument that A is good.

> If A is equal to B in one respect, and far worse in dozens of other respects, pointing out the one way it is equal doesn't make an argument that A is good. I didn't state it was better then any other language. I simply made a case that it is a good language.

Did you read the words you quoted? You did not make a case that it is a good language, that is exactly what I said. PHP is not a good language because "it is equal to other languages in one respect, and vastly worse in a dozen other ways". That is the argument you put forth, but it most certainly does not make the case that PHP is a good language.
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