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We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

bugs.php.net

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Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#231

Post by evincarofautumn »

dekz wrote: post #93
soulclap wrote: post #19

I understand that the bug reporter is in a bad situation but this is definitely an edge case and passing an empty or whatever non-numeric string to a function that is clearly meant for formatting numbers doesn't really seem like good style. is_numeric(), is_float() and casts are available for a reason. So I guess the answer is ultimately 'deal with it'. That said, I don't see this taking 'months' either, they could j…

It's also really bad style for TAX Software. He should be sanity checking all his numeric data, wow.

On another site, I would say “TRWTF is using PHP for taxes”. For that, give me a language with very strict numeric types!

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#232

Post by ricree »

j_col wrote: post #130
thought_alarm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rasmus comes across as a little kid. Here's how I read it: We have this public API that we're not exactly sure how it works version to version, and, oh, we've just changed our parsing code so if it breaks your stuff then tough shit because we're a bunch of amateurs. I especially liked this quote: "Wow, a classic case of how not to treat unpaid volunteers who provide critical pieces of your money-making infrastructure…

> I use it for some piddly shit because that's what it's good for So do Facebook.

Didn't facebook largely reimplement php, though?

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#233

Post by Mikushi »

jadoint wrote: post #215
kenneth wrote: post #103

There are countless reasons to bash on PHP because, frankly, it is a pretty terrible language[1]. However, this is not a valid reason. The bug reporter is being idiotic and needlessly disrespectful, and is making a big deal out of something that can be easily fixed with a simple `sed` command, as Rasmus demonstrated. And, to be honest, he is clearly demonstrating the fact that he's a pretty poor developer, and that h…

A bit off-topic: As someone who has built a decent web company on top of PHP, I'm curious to know if you decided to leave it for something else and if so, what was your reasoning? I'm of the mindset to stick with what I know best when I'd rather build a working product and get it out the door quickly. I don't actually personally care too much what language I use (I feel like database selection is more crucial) but I…

There is no business advantages at using Python/Rails over PHP. (and vice versa)

You should only use the technology that suits your company the best (in terms of needs and knowledge -never EVER start a company based on a tech you don't understand or know)

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#235

Post by GlennS »

thought_alarm wrote: post #63
damian2000 wrote: post #23

Love this snippet: > > Please escalate this to someone who can answer the question as to why this was changed. -- endosquid at endosquid dot com > Escalate? Oh how I wish I had someone to escalate to. -- rasmus@php.net

Rasmus comes across as a little kid. Here's how I read it: We have this public API that we're not exactly sure how it works version to version, and, oh, we've just changed our parsing code so if it breaks your stuff then tough shit because we're a bunch of amateurs. I especially liked this quote: "Wow, a classic case of how not to treat unpaid volunteers who provide critical pieces of your money-making infrastructure…

I disagree completely.

This is example of the PHP team working to fix a common criticism of their language: that it's full of inconsistencies. And when encountering push-back from users who depend on those inconsistencies, the developers have stuck to their guns.

Well played to Rasmus.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#236

Post by aidenn0 »

josephcooney wrote: post #53

The "is there anyone you can escalate this too" reminds me of a PERL newsgroup thread I saw where someone tried to rip Larry Wall a new one, asking (in a condescending way) him if he knew anything about PERL.

Or the time I suggested on HN that cperciva use scrypt (not noticing the username on the comment).

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#237

Post by andreasvc »

robryan wrote: post #184
andreasvc wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion weak typing is an unusual quirk, but there's no way to get around that. I really wonder kind of reasons could be given to defend it; I don't think a strongly typed language like Python is any harder because of its types.

I tend to agree, these days where possible when working in PHP I try not to rely on PHPs magic type conversions behind the scenes for things like comparisons.

You can't really avoid weak typing; e.g., making a mistake in a strongly typed language would raise an error, whereas in a weakly typed language it can silently screw up everything.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#238

Post by eropple »

j_col wrote: post #218
gbvb wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And his point still stands. :) Could not resist.

I know you're joking, but his point is very badly made. Anything that can support ~1 billion users is not piddly. Facebook are doing amazing work with PHP, as are many others at a very large scale. Why the unpaid work of Rasmus and many, many other open source contributors like him, who's hard work facilitated the growth of massive web sites like Facebook, is constantly being ridiculed on threads like this is sickeni…

"Facebook uses it, it can't be all bad!" is a stupid argument. Because the rest of us have to deal with PHP's not-Facebooks, whose flaws are made more frustrating because of shit tooling and the systematic encouragement of shit practices in the writing of code.

Re: We will try to stop fixing bugs in PHP

#239

Post by spacemanaki »

josegonzalez wrote: post #216
spacemanaki wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you will ship faster and better with language X, go ahead and use it. Absolutely, by all means, go for it. Godspeed. > Languages are meaningless penis measuring contests of the IT world. No they're not, and this is just insulting. I'm only an amateur PL nerd but there are people who have devoted their lives and careers to studying languages and thinking about the differences between them and how to design someth…

He meant that not in the context of Language Research, which is super-awesome and every developer should be super grateful to researches in this space, but in applied programming, where people piss on whatever language they aren't used to using/think sucks for some arbitrary reason.

But the lines between research and industry or "applied programming" aren't that clear cut (look at how much Rich Hickey's been able to mine the veins of research and bring awesome ideas to a practical and well-designed language like Clojure). I think some healthy debate, which includes pointing out languages that have severe flaws, is important and I wouldn't want to discourage it from happening, especially not on HN. I certainly don't think it needs to be dismissed as "meaningless penis measuring contests". That debate should definitely be carried out politely, of course. I'm not defending incoherent language flame wars.
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