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I Like PHP

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Re: I Like PHP

#101

Post by scott_s »

skrebbel wrote: post #52
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python's got excellent documentation, both official and third party.

Oh! Well, I must've missed that train (haven't done py for a few years). A couple of years ago, you had to get your info from a mix of a tutorial and a library reference, and most functions were documented with 3-4 sentences max and no examples. Hmm, that said, that's still exactly what I find on the official Python site (e.g. http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#string-methods - PHP beats this by lightyears…

Maybe you're looking more for a tutorial, and not a reference? I've always found the online Python docs excellent, and provided me with exactly the information I need.

Re: I Like PHP

#102

Post by ch0wn »

rick888 wrote: post #63
dshah wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most ORMs (including Django) let you easily drop-down into writing your own custom SQL queries when the need arises.

I've used Django and many others and while you can do this, you end up with code that isn't very clean.

Depends on your definition of 'clean'. I think Django found a very solid way to handle raw SQL statements[0].

[0] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/sql/

Re: I Like PHP

#104

Post by scelerat »

PaulHoule wrote: post #36
tomelders wrote: post #3

From 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.

It's a damning indictment of Java, ASP.NET, Ruby and all other environments that almost all of the apps that "any idiot can install on a web server" are written in PHP. Where's the "Wordpress" of any other programming language?

Before there were lots of easy-to-use self-publishing apps, it made sense to install your own on a $5/month host. Most people nowadays use Wordpress, the service, not Wordpress the PHP package.

Re: I Like PHP

#105

Post by bbillings »

adambard wrote: post #66
bbillings wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of our struggles at Facebook was actually with circular includes that made our php codebase super tasty spaghetti. File A includes File B includes File C includes File A by about 10000 files. It was for a very scary trying to change a core library during this time because it was almost impossible to figure out where all it was included and impossible to test all the code that touched it. Additionally, we were bas…

I worked on a large PHP codebase for a few years, and that sounds very familiar. We never did get it untangled enough to test before I left. Do you have a static analyzer or something like it that enforces the no-circular-dependencies rule, or is it just a procedural thing?

We have a static analyzer that runs when we submit a diff yes or try to commit, but in our "require_module" we also check for circular dependencies at run time. If you create one you get the module stack dumped into your log and promptly exited with an error message.

Re: I Like PHP

#106

Post by TylerE »

skrebbel wrote: post #52
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python's got excellent documentation, both official and third party.

Oh! Well, I must've missed that train (haven't done py for a few years). A couple of years ago, you had to get your info from a mix of a tutorial and a library reference, and most functions were documented with 3-4 sentences max and no examples. Hmm, that said, that's still exactly what I find on the official Python site (e.g. http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#string-methods - PHP beats this by lightyears…

Frankly, no. Just no.

The REASON PHP needs a page per function is the sheer number of poorly handled edge cases, version incompatibilities, and gotchas.

Re: I Like PHP

#108

Post by rick888 »

docgnome wrote: post #88
rick888 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When frameworks are the popular alternative to PHP (RoR,Django,etc), it is valid. Are we also not allowed to talk about RoR when it comes to a discussion about PHP alternatives?

It's a bit comparing apples to oranges. If you were comparing say Cake or Zend to RoR and Django then it would be a reasonable comparison.

It doesn't stop the hordes of programmers on HN talking about Ror and Django and Cherry pi as an alternative to PHP.

Re: I Like PHP

#109

Post by MatthewPhillips »

slindsey wrote: post #68
chc wrote: post #23

"I don’t even bother writing tests for most of the PHP I write (obviously, I would be a bit more thorough if this code were destined to be used in a more mission critical web site). Not writing tests is not the only software taboo that I break when I write PHP: I happily mix up presentation and logic all the time. That’s just how PHP is supposed to work" And this is why everybody else hates PHP. It tempts you to writ…

Can you please provide me a resource to learn how to fully separate the code from the markup? I learned web development on ColdFusion then switched to PHP. I certainly understand separation of content from design (HTML to CSS) but I honestly have no idea how to do web development without mixing markup (HTML) with the actual programming. I've done a little C and Java web stuff where my code printed HTML output - ugly.…

Of course it is impossible to do dynamic web pages without mixing code and markup, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's just that in PHP it is possible to one single file that is both code and markup combined, whereas other languages require a separate logic file that sends data to templates.

Re: I Like PHP

#110

Post by rick888 »

randomdata wrote: post #83
rick888 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When frameworks are the popular alternative to PHP (RoR,Django,etc), it is valid. Are we also not allowed to talk about RoR when it comes to a discussion about PHP alternatives?

That is like saying Cocoa is a popular alternative to C++, but you prefer C++ because it allows you to write your own UI event loop. I guess it is true if you really stretch your imagination, but does it mean anything?

Yes, when I write a web app, I don't want to be stuck with extra code that abstracts away the database into a less-efficient object/class and forces me to break the convention of the framework to write the code that I need.

I suppose it's fine when many of then newer programmers don't even know or understand what's going on underneath anyway...

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