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PHP needs a vision

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Re: PHP needs a vision

#81

Post by Firehed »

olleicua wrote: post #53
sauravc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I find nothing" is a fairly strong statement. There are plenty of general purpose scripts one can write in PHP. Also config files don't preclude 'general purpose'. For example, run anything in Java and you'll find out there are plenty of defaults running on the JVM that you can override. Yet no one would argue Java isn't a general purpose language. The fact that PHP keeps these defaults in a file is inconsequential.

How is that a fairly strong statement? Here's a much stronger one: PHP is terrible at being a general purpose language. General purpose language doesn't mean you can do things that aren't web dev in it. General purpose means that it is designed to be useful in any application. You know like Ruby, Python, or Perl. General purpose doesn't mean that those things are possible (because I agree that they are possible in PH…

Why is it a crappy tool for non web stuff? It has an absurdly large set of included tools and having all of that in one place is really handy.

More concretely- what's an easy non-web task that Ruby (as you suggest learning) is great at that PHP can't handle just as easily? Not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious.

Re: PHP needs a vision

#83

Post by twodayslate »

icelancer wrote: post #61
fleitz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally that size is not more than about 5 files.

Yeah good one. Wordpress is a great example of a huge failure written in PHP over 5 files, right?

Or facebook.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2356432130

Re: PHP needs a vision

#84

Post by jtreminio »

LaRakel wrote: post #72
jtreminio wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing a language with a framework. A more apt comparison is rails with symfony2 or zend framework2.

You're right. Still I can compare doing web development using ruby on rails with doing it in php without a framework. I've done both, rails was much more pleasurable. See? I just compared the overall experience of a language with that of a framework.

You just did it again. Why would you compare Ruby on Rails with PHP?

Do you realize what you're saying?

edit: replied to you as if you were fleitz. Point stands as you basically parroted what he said.

Re: PHP needs a vision

#85

Post by raylu »

Tichy wrote: post #36
cies wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why keep investing in hopeless tech? Because your codebase relies on it. Death will be hard for any mainstream language (proof: COBOL), especially open source ones. It might find not many new projects are started in it.

So you would upvote an article about "COBOL needs a new vision" on HN?

I don't think that follows from what he said.

Re: PHP needs a vision

#86

Post by jtreminio »

polemic wrote: post #79
ircmaxell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response would seem warranted if you had been a participating member of the PHP internals list for any significant length of time. Stas is pretty well known for jumping into threads and completely derailing, and shooting things down with BS like "PHP is not Java, stop trying to make it into Java". The response is a culmination of a long time of watching him respond in such a fashion. Stuff like this: http://marc.…

Fair enough, but the only Proven Successful (tm) solution to trolling is to ignore it. If it's not productive, disregard it.

Can't ignore him, he's got a vote in PHP internal.

Re: PHP needs a vision

#87

Post by jtreminio »

[deleted] wrote: post #80
jtreminio wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PHP needs to die That comment is extremely insightful. How did I not see this? > It was originally called "Personal Home Page" I was originally 19 inches long and crapped my diaper several times a day. PHP has grown and changed tremendously since those days. It's not the same codebase, at all: "Finding PHP/FI 2.0 still inefficient and lacking features they needed to power an eCommerce application they were developi…

[deleted]

I can't tell if you're trolling or simply ignorant about what the language actually currently is.

PHP4 => PHP5 was a huge change, even more so if you compare PHP3 with PHP5.

Re: PHP needs a vision

#88

Post by drusenko »

laurent123456 wrote: post #78
taylorbuley wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nice side affect of this is that PHP can suit both novice and experienced programmers. Newbies don't have to learn OO before they write Hello World.

That's also a problem because anyone with a day experience in PHP can claim to be PHP developer, and often companies can't really tell the difference between an experienced and non-experienced programmer. If they can do PHP, they can build our website and we end up with horrible unmaintainable code. I think that's why PHP has such a bad reputation.

maybe we should all switch to brainfuck for web development then so we can weed out the stupids [/sarcasm]

Re: PHP needs a vision

#89

Post by orangethirty »

jaequery wrote: post #73
cies wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a more positive note: I think the Symfony team actually has the vision: provided it has to be with PHP, let's make a full stack web development framework (like Rails) that does not suck, and create heaps of interesting components/libraries that can be used perfectly on their own in the process! These guys and girls are showing to what extend PHP can be pushed, they also build a fair share of general purpose libs t…

have you ever even tried Symfony? i think a lot of the debate is about how people are starting to get fed up with the Java/c#-like direction PHP is heading. symfony is not like rails, no where close to it. not sure exactly where they started taking the wrong turn but it's really going the opposite direction from other languages like node/python/ruby where simplicity is at it's core.

PHP is one of the major corporate web languages. That is why its heading down Java street. But that's not a bad thing either. Every language covers a specific need. They can't all be everything to everybody. Sure, there is a lot of horrible PHP code (specially in the online ads industry), but that does not change the fact that the language works for the needs of a given market. I don't get why people want to turn PHP into Ruby/Python. If you want that, then by all means use Ruby/Python. If you have to use PHP at work, then make peace with it, and use a more modern PHP style. If you are going to complain, just do it to your CTO or person in charge of choosing programming languages. Though most don't listen...
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