I Like PHP
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I Like PHP
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Re: I Like PHP
#2You say if you make one assumption about C, you have to say the same about PHP. Well, PHP is academic, C is not. C is fast, PHP is not. I would only have agreed with your post if it were PHP and C++. C++ is academic and it's not slow but it is slower.
You also say that you either like both PHP and C, or you like neither. Well what about Lua, Python... or any other embed-able language? Most Python programmers would say they don't like PHP but love C, because the languages work well together, same with PERL as well. You could say that you either like both C++ and PHP or you like none. Maybe, because PHP can compile to C++ to become extremely fast, which is why Facebook and Yahoo both use PHP because it can be fast and it is well documented. It should not be compared to C though.
(Note: I contradict myself, PHP by itself is slow. PHP is not fast whatsoever. C++ is a low level language which is the only reason why it's fast and I think it's awesome that PHP can compile to C++. I'm in no way against PHP and I'm not encouraging people to stray away from the language. I was just pointing a simple error in this post.)
Re: I Like PHP
#3From the comments: "PHP is great for its purpose. Quick scripts that generate web content. It’s even OK for small applications. But just like C, PHP is lousy for the medium to large. Any software project with a duration in months or greater that is entirely in PHP is going to be painful."
Like Facebook? Or Wordpress? Or Digg?
PHP aint perfect, but it's demonstrably suitable for medium to large projects.
Re: I Like PHP
#4From the comments: "PHP is great for its purpose. Quick scripts that generate web content. It’s even OK for small applications. But just like C, PHP is lousy for the medium to large. Any software project with a duration in months or greater that is entirely in PHP is going to be painful." Like Facebook? Or Wordpress? Or Digg? PHP aint perfect, but it's demonstrably suitable for medium to large projects.
There is little indication that Facebook isn't painful to deal with compared to a functionally identical version of Facebook built in another language/platform. Because someone did it and is profiting from it does not mean they could not have done it better.
Re: I Like PHP
#5From the comments: "PHP is great for its purpose. Quick scripts that generate web content. It’s even OK for small applications. But just like C, PHP is lousy for the medium to large. Any software project with a duration in months or greater that is entirely in PHP is going to be painful." Like Facebook? Or Wordpress? Or Digg? PHP aint perfect, but it's demonstrably suitable for medium to large projects.
Is developing for Facebook not painful?
Re: I Like PHP
#6"There is nothing more exciting than modifying a file, hitting Refresh on your browser and seeing the result right away"
I think this feature is definitely useful, but you can virtually do the same thing in other languages with templating engines.
Re: I Like PHP
#7"There is nothing more exciting than modifying a file, hitting Refresh on your browser and seeing the result right away" I think this feature is definitely useful, but you can virtually do the same thing in other languages with templating engines.
With additional setup, yes, but PHP has a fast development cycle out-of-the-box which I think is significant.
Re: I Like PHP
#8"There is nothing more exciting than modifying a file, hitting Refresh on your browser and seeing the result right away" I think this feature is definitely useful, but you can virtually do the same thing in other languages with templating engines.
Exactly. This is not a feature of PHP, but simply CGI.
Re: I Like PHP
#9From the comments: "PHP is great for its purpose. Quick scripts that generate web content. It’s even OK for small applications. But just like C, PHP is lousy for the medium to large. Any software project with a duration in months or greater that is entirely in PHP is going to be painful." Like Facebook? Or Wordpress? Or Digg? PHP aint perfect, but it's demonstrably suitable for medium to large projects.
I think it's probably easier to create unmanageable spaghetti with PHP. It's not that you can't build a large project in PHP, it's that it's easier to foul up.
By far the part of PHP that shines for small projects and causes havoc in large is the way includes work. It's possible to be disciplined about this, but it's not common. I remember many times searching in vain for some function or another that was included somewhere, somehow. Sometimes even in code that I wrote entirely!
Facebook and Wordpress and Digg being in PHP isn't a decision that was made with a large architecture in mind, it was done because the people who wrote those projects knew PHP (And in Wordpress's case, because the people who use it need it in PHP).
Re: I Like PHP
#10You can do anything web related with PHP, it might not be the coolest kid in town but it gets every job done pretty well in the space it has been designed for. Use a framework like symfony and large scale applications with decent design are no problem at all in PHP.
Same is true for Python, Ruby etc though, so just use what suits you best.
Comparing it to C ? Dunno, completely different animals. I wouldnt do web dev in C, but i also wouldnt do graphics programming in PHP. Just because they both are not designed with OO at the core doesnt mean they are exactly the same.