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PHP 8: Before and After

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Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#211

Post by dcabrejas »

jhgb wrote: post #178
dcabrejas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't found any good arguments against PHP in the comments here, just pure hate. Let's name a few of the arguments people are making: 1. Its variables start with $ and that is ugly: I mean, come on, I won't even entertain this bigotry. 2. It used to be better before: This is just pure nonesense, before OOP PHP wasn't good to create any big and well-structured application, it is ironic because most of the bad opin…

> 1. Its variables start with $ and that is ugly: At the very least it seems nonsensical and cargo-cultish: As a non PHP-er, what is the actual purpose of $? In Perl, it indicates variable context (for better or worse, there's more than one, so it has to be indicated somehow ). In shell, it indicates the substitution of variable name by its value. In PHP...I draw a blank. It really seems like an "I wanted my language…

It means the start of a variable name, as simple as that, it isn't anything significant. Maybe it was made to make parsing the language easier at the time, who cares?

You can get used to that in 10 min and move on with your life, it is not a reason to not pick up the language, it's bike shedding.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#212

Post by jhgb »

dcabrejas wrote: post #211
jhgb wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Its variables start with $ and that is ugly: At the very least it seems nonsensical and cargo-cultish: As a non PHP-er, what is the actual purpose of $? In Perl, it indicates variable context (for better or worse, there's more than one, so it has to be indicated somehow ). In shell, it indicates the substitution of variable name by its value. In PHP...I draw a blank. It really seems like an "I wanted my language…

It means the start of a variable name, as simple as that, it isn't anything significant. Maybe it was made to make parsing the language easier at the time, who cares? You can get used to that in 10 min and move on with your life, it is not a reason to not pick up the language, it's bike shedding.

There was a number of other reasons why I didn't end up using PHP, so it was a bit like death by a thousand cuts. It was not the reason for me, just a small showcase of the weirdness for a newcomer.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#213

Post by simion314 »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #185
simion314 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not fair to bring C into this, C is an old language and when all the kernels and core libraries were created it was the best tool for the job. You hate C please go and contribute to the many rewrites and one day 25 years from now maybe we will have an OS written in some language that is cool now but would be outdated then. My advice is use the best tool for the job when possible, if you don't have a choice then…

If we want to really reduce typing we should make everyone program in Haskell (and start a national effort to improve its tooling) ;)

I think you misunderstand me , my point is think more and type less. Is not about clever one liners or languages with less verbosity but better implementations and abstractions and you can implement a good solution in a lot of languages.

An example would be where a dev needs to implement X, then he goes on Google , finds some code sample , copy-pastes it, tests it, then changes here and there to make it work. The issue is that he maybe forgot to read the documentation for the functions used in the sample, or did not think that the sample is incomplete (maybe missinfg input sanitation) or is outdated or the solution was already in the project code if he only have asked or looked around in the code.

Other example is when a dev wants to solve X, installs a package from npm that does X but does not understand it and in fact that npm package is just a few lines of code that you could have read, learn something, find limitations and improve that.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#214

Post by moksly »

TheHemric wrote: post #112

I don't really understand why in 2020 there's still this kind of blind hatred against this language. It often comes from horrible bad memories from previous versions or old frameworks. Objectively, compared to other languages i've been working with it is more than OK. Despite it's lack of "style" it is easy to understand, host, tests, diagnose and it is powerfull for web applications. I've been working on a SaaS API…

There is a discrepancy between what’s hip, and what’s actually used. On places like HN where everyone is in love with Ruby... errr... Go.... errrr I mean, Rust, you’d think that those languages are the what’s what.

Then when you look at the job market, you get a very different picture of what actually gets used. In my country there hasn’t been a single job posting for all Rust in all of 2020. There’s been a single mention of Go as a “nice to know” PHD job at Google Denmark and there is just a single company who has had openings for Ruby. Hell even with everyone’s favourite Python, almost every job involving it is in DataScience and needs you to be a mathematician first, analyst of some kind second and a programmer third. There are a few django jobs, and good for those guys, but in general, even python doesn’t see that much general usage.

The vast overwhelming amount of jobs that’s been listed in 2020 in Denmark have been for C#, PHP and JavaScript, with JAVA still hanging in there somewhat, though typically bundled with whatever they call JBOSS these days.

So unless you’re smack in the centre of Silicon Valley, I probably wouldn’t worry too much about the hate PHP gets.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#215

Post by bluntfang »

dcabrejas wrote: post #136
TheHemric wrote: post #112

I don't really understand why in 2020 there's still this kind of blind hatred against this language. It often comes from horrible bad memories from previous versions or old frameworks. Objectively, compared to other languages i've been working with it is more than OK. Despite it's lack of "style" it is easy to understand, host, tests, diagnose and it is powerfull for web applications. I've been working on a SaaS API…

I haven't found any good arguments against PHP in the comments here, just pure hate. Let's name a few of the arguments people are making: 1. Its variables start with $ and that is ugly: I mean, come on, I won't even entertain this bigotry. 2. It used to be better before: This is just pure nonesense, before OOP PHP wasn't good to create any big and well-structured application, it is ironic because most of the bad opin…

>I won't even entertain this bigotry.

I'm not sure using a word that has historically been used for people who are racist is the right word when talking about programming languages.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#216

Post by mtberatwork »

dcabrejas wrote: post #209
mtberatwork wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. It is trying to be Java: Well, sure it is more like Java, only less verbose and easier to write. Developers can be much more productive in PHP. I suppose if you are equating extra keystrokes to productivity, then sure. However, Java has vast ecosystems and standard libraries that dwarf most languages. The real gains in productivity are in not re-inventing the wheel for everything. Verbosity has little to do with…

You are proving my point by defending Java against PHP because my argument was that being more like Java isn't a negative thing. The productivity point was a secondary point but when it comes to building websites I think people can build faster in PHP although I guess that depends on many factors.

I guess I am not following your argument. Are you not saying that since PHP is less verbose than Java, this is better for productivity? After which you then follow up and say that PHP becoming more like Java is not bad? Seems contradictory, no?

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#217

Post by mtberatwork »

Macuyiko wrote: post #113
tannhaeuser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what baffles me with PHP. Instead of building on PHP's unique capabilities, they try to become more like Java. When PHP was and is quite successful as server-side language for HTML templating, rooted in embedded PHP triggered from SGMLish processing instructions in otherwise static HTML. It's only that they made such a hack job without context-dependent, HTML-aware escaping, making it a primary vector for inje…

I totally agree. What I'd actually welcome these days is a web "glue language" which adheres to what PHP wanted to be in the beginning (easy HTML output, one file per page, easy database querying, easy CGI interfacing), but without any OOP bolted on (C-style procedural would be fine), without any of the horrible security decisions, and with strong typing. It would make a nice counterpoint to all OOP-style web dev lan…

Isn't this what PHP still is? Can't you just drop index.php into a directory?

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#218

Post by mgkimsal »

mtberatwork wrote: post #217
Macuyiko wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. What I'd actually welcome these days is a web "glue language" which adheres to what PHP wanted to be in the beginning (easy HTML output, one file per page, easy database querying, easy CGI interfacing), but without any OOP bolted on (C-style procedural would be fine), without any of the horrible security decisions, and with strong typing. It would make a nice counterpoint to all OOP-style web dev lan…

Isn't this what PHP still is? Can't you just drop index.php into a directory?

Was going to ask the same thing.

There's not much in PHP 5/7/8 which precludes just doing some raw db queries and including some templates.

The biggest 'drawback' might be that there's not one name-branch 'framework' which takes this approach (indeed, it's the opposite of 'framework' thinking). But if there was some project that documented/demonstrated 'best practices' for 'non-framework' projects, it might help reduce the "I need a framework because raw PHP is so messy" objections.

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#219

Post by codeulike »

wccrawford wrote: post #200
codeulike wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of "PHP Hammer" I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there. You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes. You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Sti…

I think a better analogy would be that the PHP carpenters have standard old tools that people have used forever, and they work just fine. Normal hammer with wooden handles, normal planes, etc etc. But there are modern carpenters that have hammers that are 100% metal and never break and actually improve your hammering power. The new electric hand planes work a lot faster, though you do have to be more careful because…

The difference comes in how often modifications need to be made

Re: PHP 8: Before and After

#220

Post by agumonkey »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #82
agumonkey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different culture. They go around the problems differently. Also the way the write programs seems simpler and leaner (composer in mind)... probably not ultra safe but a good enough ratio I guess.

> It's a different culture. They go around the problems differently. Also the way the write programs seems simpler and leaner (composer in mind)... probably not ultra safe but a good enough ratio I guess. No it's not a different culture, they(enterprise Java and enterprise PHP) both try to force some IoC container everywhere, except PHP is an interpreted language, it doesn't need a IoC container with with XML/YAML co…

That's unrelated, you can tell very rapidly how nicer a tool like composer is from most java things of this era; this is entirely cultural IMO.. you can use xml or yaml in fine or absurd ways.
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