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Things will not change

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Re: Things will not change

#11

Post by darrelld »

ForHackernews wrote: post #9
vijayr wrote: post #6

People sometimes give you funny faces when you tell them that you use „old and „outdated ones (e.g. Mercurial, Less, PHP). This is so true. I've seen people refuse to take web dev classes in PHP and wait for availability of Java/Python classes (and not doing anything in the interim). I've seen people from marketing, sales, recruitment etc (who've never written code) put down PHP. It gets a little annoying at times.

To be fair, PHP is kinda dangerous, especially in the hands of novices. Honestly, a world with fewer people-who've-never-written-code writing PHP doesn't sound like a bad start to me. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to write great code in PHP, it's just a language that makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

You hear the same argument for C / C++ but you don't see people putting it down as much as PHP.

Re: Things will not change

#12

Post by innguest »

vijayr wrote: post #6

People sometimes give you funny faces when you tell them that you use „old and „outdated ones (e.g. Mercurial, Less, PHP). This is so true. I've seen people refuse to take web dev classes in PHP and wait for availability of Java/Python classes (and not doing anything in the interim). I've seen people from marketing, sales, recruitment etc (who've never written code) put down PHP. It gets a little annoying at times.

> I've seen [lay] people [...] put down PHP

Would you learn to drive on a Lada?

Re: Things will not change

#13

Post by lmz »

darrelld wrote: post #11
ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, PHP is kinda dangerous, especially in the hands of novices. Honestly, a world with fewer people-who've-never-written-code writing PHP doesn't sound like a bad start to me. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to write great code in PHP, it's just a language that makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

You hear the same argument for C / C++ but you don't see people putting it down as much as PHP.

The beginner's C / C++ programs don't usually get put on the Internet (or even on a local network).

Re: Things will not change

#14

Post by pyre »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #7
vijayr wrote: post #6

People sometimes give you funny faces when you tell them that you use „old and „outdated ones (e.g. Mercurial, Less, PHP). This is so true. I've seen people refuse to take web dev classes in PHP and wait for availability of Java/Python classes (and not doing anything in the interim). I've seen people from marketing, sales, recruitment etc (who've never written code) put down PHP. It gets a little annoying at times.

The idea of Mercurial being considered old and outdated is particularly baffling.

Maybe he forgot to include "popular" or "hip" in his list of adjectives. I guess it's also possible that it's status comes across as "outdated" because, as a tool, it seems to have a stronger preference amount heavy svn users (the people that think git's ability to rewrite commits is 'scary')?

Re: Things will not change

#15

Post by wtetzner »

darrelld wrote: post #11
ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, PHP is kinda dangerous, especially in the hands of novices. Honestly, a world with fewer people-who've-never-written-code writing PHP doesn't sound like a bad start to me. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to write great code in PHP, it's just a language that makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

You hear the same argument for C / C++ but you don't see people putting it down as much as PHP.

The dangerous features of C/C++ gives you something useful in return -- low level control of memory. The dangerous features of PHP don't provide any benefits. It's dangerous because of poor design.

Re: Things will not change

#16

Post by 0xffff2 »

darrelld wrote: post #11
ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, PHP is kinda dangerous, especially in the hands of novices. Honestly, a world with fewer people-who've-never-written-code writing PHP doesn't sound like a bad start to me. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to write great code in PHP, it's just a language that makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

You hear the same argument for C / C++ but you don't see people putting it down as much as PHP.

That's probably because C/++ don't have good drop in alternatives. If I want to write a website, there are at least half a dozen equally mature languages to choose from. If I want to write any kind of embedded systems code, C is almost always going to be far and away the easiest way to go.

Re: Things will not change

#17

Post by ryandrake »

> When someone actually has built something, and it could be used by someone, they only get feedback about the size of the pages, how slow it is and that they should have used some other technology after all.

I know of a certain community where this seems to happen a lot. Instead of commenting on the actual content or the idea, it's always "Their web page doesn't SCROLL the way I like!!" and "What amateurs--they should have used Angular React Ember js with Docker!!" and "I didn't read any of the article but the title is CLICK BAIT!"

People are often quick to make the easy critique of something based on irrelevant surface characteristics.

Re: Things will not change

#18

Post by general_failure »

lmz wrote: post #13
darrelld wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hear the same argument for C / C++ but you don't see people putting it down as much as PHP.

The beginner's C / C++ programs don't usually get put on the Internet (or even on a local network).

There is no such thing as a bad program. If it works, it's fine. Really...

Re: Things will not change

#19

Post by curiousjorge »

beautifully written. It hit every irk that have been brewing inside of me for the past 4+ years or so.

Unfortunately, it's tough to find a job if you tell your employers what you really think about their choice of tech stack sucks or they have no idea what they are doing.

Re: Things will not change

#20

Post by c0nfused »

innguest wrote: post #12
vijayr wrote: post #6

People sometimes give you funny faces when you tell them that you use „old and „outdated ones (e.g. Mercurial, Less, PHP). This is so true. I've seen people refuse to take web dev classes in PHP and wait for availability of Java/Python classes (and not doing anything in the interim). I've seen people from marketing, sales, recruitment etc (who've never written code) put down PHP. It gets a little annoying at times.

> I've seen [lay] people [...] put down PHP Would you learn to drive on a Lada?

Conversely, should you learn to drive in a lamborghini?

Tools matter as a result of what you want out of them. In this case learning to drive. They honestly don't have that much value themselves. A guy who learns to drive on a Lada can drive a Mercedes too.

The same is true for programming languages, even though we love to pretend it isn't

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