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Why PHP won

startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com

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Re: Why PHP won

#41

Post by kirubakaran »

icode wrote: post #37
kirubakaran wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It enabled me to write multiple hugely successful websites that make me enough money for me, so I can do whatever I want. For the rest of my life. Very interesting. Please elaborate!

I prefer to stay anonymous. But its probably a very typical Nerd 2.0 story like the ones you hear at this website often. Only that I always stayed in my room and didnt connect to any other web2.0 people. No Blog, no press releases, no ycombinator, no investors. I just wrote some stuff that people want and got some good return from it.

Without revealing your identity, perhaps you can share what mistakes you made, what you learned etc...?

Re: Why PHP won

#42

Post by tlrobinson »

icode wrote: post #32
brlewis wrote: post #9

This article is totally barking up the wrong tree. PHP's growth had little to do with its appeal to programmers, and lots to do with its appeal to shared hosting providers. Safe mode is what I'm talking about.

I have been a coder all my life and PHP very much appeals to me. I used Assembler, Basic, Pascal, C++ and a couple of other languages and now that I code in PHP, its the best part of my life. It enabled me to write multiple hugely successful websites that make me enough money for me, so I can do whatever I want. For the rest of my life. I really love Linux, Apache and MySql. So doing things in LAMP is just great for…

Wait, was this a joke? I honestly can't tell.

Re: Why PHP won

#43

Post by bhiggins »

php's popular because it's easy to get started. name a file .php and put it on your shared host and your code runs. unfortunately php doesn't get anything else right. i say this having used php for years. eventually you find that it wastes more time than it saves in the beginning. it is a terrible language with a terrible history, and i expect the future to be similar.

Re: Why PHP won

#44

Post by moder »

It was the safe and easy install for shared hosting providers plus the easy deployment for web devs.

Really, it's a simple recipe. I'm still wondering why Perl/Python/Ruby/$fave_lang doesn't just mix together the same ingredients and do the same thing.

Re: Why PHP won

#45

Post by moder »

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #24

PHP won because mod_php was well done. The language isn't especially relevant. Perl's mod_perl was simply a no go for the typical hosting scenario because it gives way too much power to users to screw up the server; you can't realistically set it up for basic shared hosting. mod_perlite is a new piece of software that brings a php style system to perl. It's mod_perl made suitable for typical hosting needs.

Interesting. http://www.modperlite.org/

The interview by chromatic was quite informative. Unfortunately, they say that they're forced to repeatedly reinitialize the perl interpreter with every request. This would seem to defeat the purpose of having a persistent perl, no?

Re: Why PHP won

#46

Post by sh1mmer »

brlewis wrote: post #9

This article is totally barking up the wrong tree. PHP's growth had little to do with its appeal to programmers, and lots to do with its appeal to shared hosting providers. Safe mode is what I'm talking about.

I agree somewhat but there are other factors. You can't tell me that every web host worth their salt didn't (or doesn't) offer up a cgi-bin directory.

I would characterize it as this: PHP is a Perl-like language that is entirely web oriented.

Because Rasmus built PHP to make web sites it was oriented towards the web from day 1. Since it's similar to Perl (dynamic typing, just-in-time, etc) it's easy to learn and flexible.

However, unlike Perl there was no existing community with a non web focus. This made it very easy for the PHP community to rally around web projects and achieve all the things that made it good for the web and hence extremely adoptable.

Re: Why PHP won

#47

Post by spoondan »

brlewis wrote: post #9

This article is totally barking up the wrong tree. PHP's growth had little to do with its appeal to programmers, and lots to do with its appeal to shared hosting providers. Safe mode is what I'm talking about.

I think your point can be summarized most plainly by saying PHP is cheap to host. I don't doubt that is a large part of its continuing popularity. But it is begging the question: Hosting providers didn't force PHP on the world, they met a demand. Where did that demand come from?

I don't think its technical merits (such as they are), community, documentation, or appeal to hosting providers is to blame. I think the answer is rather simpler: PHP was the only language that tied itself to the "build a website" niche in both its implementation and its marketing. Sun's contemporary efforts with Java were scattered and, even in the web domain, more focused on applets. PHP had "build a website" written all over it.

In short, I think it comes down to the old adage: location, location, location. PHP was perfectly positioned. The web boomed, and PHP rode its coattails. Anything with even the slimmest virtues could have succeeded with such good placement. In fact, it did.

Re: Why PHP won

#48

Post by vlad »

tlrobinson wrote: post #42
icode wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been a coder all my life and PHP very much appeals to me. I used Assembler, Basic, Pascal, C++ and a couple of other languages and now that I code in PHP, its the best part of my life. It enabled me to write multiple hugely successful websites that make me enough money for me, so I can do whatever I want. For the rest of my life. I really love Linux, Apache and MySql. So doing things in LAMP is just great for…

Wait, was this a joke? I honestly can't tell.

I don't think it is. The bleeding edge of Web 1.0 or even Web 2.0 development required a LAMP stack.

The author says that compared to programming desktop applications (all of the languages he mentioned), the web based stack of MySQL, PHP, and Linux better allowed him to create apps that users wanted.

Developers who started with PHP and moved up to Ruby and Python may not realize that older developers who started with Assembler, Basic, and C++ find any kind of web development a huge improvement for them. And, a productive single person would by definition try to extend and improve their app instead of learning new languages unnecessarily every 6 months.

Re: Why PHP won

#49

Post by tlrobinson »

vlad wrote: post #48
tlrobinson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, was this a joke? I honestly can't tell.

I don't think it is. The bleeding edge of Web 1.0 or even Web 2.0 development required a LAMP stack. The author says that compared to programming desktop applications (all of the languages he mentioned), the web based stack of MySQL, PHP, and Linux better allowed him to create apps that users wanted. Developers who started with PHP and moved up to Ruby and Python may not realize that older developers who started with…

I didn't mean to imply PHP couldn't be used successfully (it certainly can), rather the post sounded blissfully ignorant to the point of sarcasm. Perhaps "ignorant" isn't the right word, though ignorant of the "better" languages.
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