Live data from Hacker News

PHP Addiction

marco.org

311–320 of 320 posts

Re: PHP Addiction

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, Linux is actually easier to maintain. For example, when I was using OS X (several years ago, now), I could not figure out how to update Java. Apparently it involved using the "Software Center", but it didn't actually work, so I was stuck with the old version. So the project I was working on in Windows at the time just didn't work on OS X because it was using new APIs. Absurd! I've never had a proble…

I don't know... I think you picked some awfully bad examples. Updating Java on OSX is trivial (download & run), no idea what problem you ran into with git, OSX has full-screen apps and multiple desktops, and OSX has always had the nicest font support and type rendering of any OS -- Apple has always been at the forefront of that.

OS X does have full screen apps and does support multiple monitors, just not at the same time. Which is just absurd.

The problem I ran into with Git was simple: I could not figure out how to build it from source or install it without administrator privileges. After about an hour of screwing around, I just gave up and sshed into a Linux box instead (both were for school).

Updating Java was an issue back when I was doing Java development. I simply couldn't get the version of Java I needed, period. I don't see how it can be a bad example when that's exactly what happened. I think Apple has since given up on packaging Java themselves, which probably ameliorated the issue.

As far as fonts go, I have no doubt OS X has decent font support. My point was that Linux also has great font support these days.

These aren't random problems I heard about: these are actual problems I've personally experienced. I definitely had a higher density of problems per unit time spent on OS X than on Linux or Windows, which says quite a bit.

Re: PHP Addiction

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a longtime fan of Linux and have used it as my desktop of choice for years, but apparently you and I have a different idea of what "beautiful" is. That screenshot is a ghastly smattering of black, grey, and red, with no unified look or feel. Sublime Text is really good looking in its own right, but that overall desktop doesn't look appealing to me. Granted, I use Gnome Shell for my desktop of choice, and find tha…

It's a nitpick, but X11 isn't a window manager; it's just a graphics layer - more like OS X's Quartz. If you run Gnome Shell with compositing enabled, your window manager is Mutter; if you run Gnome Shell in fallback mode, your window manager is Metacity. That is, unless you change it, and that is a reason I love Linux.

Very true, I misspoke, and meant more in the terms of "standard X11-based window managers", which all tend to share the same basic set of features, eg, highlight/middle-paste, alt-dragging to move windows, etc.

Re: PHP Addiction

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I find Ruby to be nice overall, you're wrong on several points: - Whether or not Python was historically OO or not, everything in Python is now an object. Its love for protocols drives design like `str(foo)` (which calls `foo.__str__()`), not any particular deficiency in its object system - Python's lambdas are indeed limited, but one can easily use `def` and just name the function. Functions are first class, a…

Personally, I find that Python and Ruby are comparable as it relates to utility. I'd think it is fair to say that argument is a wash. It is Ruby's expressiveness that makes it my choice before Python: --- Ruby --- letters = ['a', 'b', 'c'] letters.map &:capitalize --- Python --- letters = ['a', 'b', 'c'] capitalize = lambda x: x.capitalize() map(capitalize, letters) --- PHP --- Of course, this is one example where PH…

idiomatic python would be

    chars = 'abc'
    [c.upper() for c in chars]

Re: PHP Addiction

#315
post #80

The only thing actually wrong with PHP, is that it's popular but not cool. And that's a terrible place to sit for any product. It runs half the Internet quite well, but if you went by the posting on HN, you'd think it was Windows Vista. I've probably read every article critical of PHP that has hit the front page of HN in the last few years, and the one thing they all have in common is the vague refrain that PHP is a…

Follow the "deeply flawed" link in the article to see lots of bullet points of precise criticisms. The target of the link is http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-de...

And the target response is http://blog.ircmaxell.com/2012/04/php-sucks-but-i-like-it.ht...

Re: PHP Addiction

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop Linux is actually fucking fantastic if you are prepared to take up messing around with it as a hobby. It requires commitment, time, and and open mind, but fuck, I've just sorted out xmonad, I have my dotfiles syncing via git, and it's bloody amazing . Package management is bliss, and both pacman and apt shit all over homebrew (great as homebrew is), it's absurdly fast even on old hardware, it's free, it's got…

I'm a longtime fan of Linux and have used it as my desktop of choice for years, but apparently you and I have a different idea of what "beautiful" is. That screenshot is a ghastly smattering of black, grey, and red, with no unified look or feel. Sublime Text is really good looking in its own right, but that overall desktop doesn't look appealing to me. Granted, I use Gnome Shell for my desktop of choice, and find tha…

> but apparently you and I have a different idea of what "beautiful" is

I'm sure we do, I'll justify what I claimed, though - the colour scheme is unified across the entire system, fonts are readable, the borders are thin and the windows have a little spacing so it isn't too crowded. I've toyed with a lot of aesthetics, and I'm quite happy with this one at the moment.

Yes, it's very information heavy, but it suits the way I work, I find it visually appealing (though I can understand why people who like OSX's aesthetics would dislike it), but quite a lot of thought has gone into how it looks :)

Re: PHP Addiction

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, I have three choices: I can have a poor Linux environment with no work, a better but still mediocre Windows/OS X environment with little work or a good Linux environment with a bit of work. The reason I don't use Windows or OS X any more (and I've used both extensively in the past) is simple: sure, both are easier to set up (with a new computer, there is no set up). But both are strictly less produc…

I'd disagree that setting up the computer is an O(1) operation, because it ignores maintenance. Changes, additions, upgrades, new hardware, new software. I'd also disagree that Linux is objectively faster for getting "real" work done. An example to illustrate the point: I've been using Ubuntu on and off, and tried to set up IntelliJ to match my Android development environment on Mac OS X. First of all, the installati…

Judging Linux by what Java looks like is pretty unfair. Java looks fucking horrible on Linux.

Re: PHP Addiction

#318
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that the web is not the internet.

Pretty sure almost everybody on HN understands the technical separation between the two. Sometimes people speak in broad generalities, or use "Internet" when they mean "Web." It is in fact extraordinarily common.

> Sometimes people ... use "Internet" when they mean "Web." It is in fact extraordinarily common.

It's also wrong.

Re: PHP Addiction

#319
post #297

I'd suggest switching to JavaScript (or CoffeeScript) instead of Python or some other trendy language. a) You need to know it anyway. b) Node.js is awesome and works the way web servers ought to work. c) JavaScript, if you avoid the obvious warts, is a really nice language. Every other language I've learned either has as many warts as JavaScript or isn't practical. Having picked JavaScript, it turns out to be amazing…

> Every other language I've learned either has as many warts as JavaScript or isn't practical. Time to learn some more languages.

An, because of course your favorite language is perfect. Let me guess -- lisp?

Re: PHP Addiction

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I find that Python and Ruby are comparable as it relates to utility. I'd think it is fair to say that argument is a wash. It is Ruby's expressiveness that makes it my choice before Python: --- Ruby --- letters = ['a', 'b', 'c'] letters.map &:capitalize --- Python --- letters = ['a', 'b', 'c'] capitalize = lambda x: x.capitalize() map(capitalize, letters) --- PHP --- Of course, this is one example where PH…

idiomatic python would be chars = 'abc' [c.upper() for c in chars]

Fair enough :)
Post reply on HN