PHP Sucks

#1

Post by saurabh » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 12:39 PM UTC

PHP Sucks
evertpot.com

Re: PHP Sucks

#2

Post by billpg » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

Is the success thanks to PHP or in spite of PHP?

Re: PHP Sucks

#3

Post by hobs » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:24 PM UTC

billpg wrote: post #2

Is the success thanks to PHP or in spite of PHP?

IMO any good dev can be professional in any language, its just harder in some than others. It is a bit sad to see someone who has built up their knowledge and skill leave it because of its social stigma.

Why PHP is so successful? Well...

"Shantytowns are usually built from common, inexpensive materials and simple tools. Shantytowns can be built using relatively unskilled labor. Even though the labor force is "unskilled" in the customary sense, the construction and maintenance of this sort of housing can be quite labor intensive. There is little specialization. Each housing unit is constructed and maintained primarily by its inhabitants, and each inhabitant must be a jack of all the necessary trades. There is little concern for infrastructure, since infrastructure requires coordination and capital, and specialized resources, equipment, and skills. There is little overall planning or regulation of growth. Shantytowns emerge where there is a need for housing, a surplus of unskilled labor, and a dearth of capital investment. Shantytowns fulfill an immediate, local need for housing by bringing available resources to bear on the problem. Loftier architectural goals are a luxury that has to wait."

- http://www.laputan.org/mud/

Re: PHP Sucks

#4

Post by brianwawok » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

billpg wrote: post #2

Is the success thanks to PHP or in spite of PHP?

Well.. people that don't know how to code but want to hack in a 1 line dynamic thingy.. where else would they turn? It build a pretty good community for newcomers.

Now as to why a facebook would use it? mindblown

Re: PHP Sucks

#5

Post by Vozze » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

    I hate it, because it makes me feel defensive. PHP in their minds
    is much worse than it practically is. Im tired of defending
    PHP, Im tired of being set back and having to proof my compete
    by virtue of being a PHP programmer.

For me it is the other way round. I like it when journalists ask me what super advanced tech stack I use. When I get tweets about what libraries I use in my projects. And students mail me questions about the technology behind my Startup. And I can reply "It is just your average LAMP stack".

Re: PHP Sucks

#6

Post by lujim » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #4

billpg wrote: post #2

Is the success thanks to PHP or in spite of PHP?

Well.. people that don't know how to code but want to hack in a 1 line dynamic thingy.. where else would they turn? It build a pretty good community for newcomers. Now as to why a facebook would use it? mindblown

Facebook wouldn't use it if Facebook started two or three years after it did.

Re: PHP Sucks

#7

Post by swalsh » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

I hate PHP too, but I write it almost every day at work. There's something to be said for how stable it is. I spent a large amount of my career doing .net development and deployed very rarely. It was a big day when I deployed. I would say to my wife, probably going to late tonight, we're deploying. Because something always went wrong when deploying.

Here, I deploy every other morning. Usually, while my coffee is getting to the right temp. The ability to just "throw it on the server", and to take it back if you need to make it great. There's a bunch of devs here, and that deploy all day long every day is one of the main reasons we move "so much faster" than our competition.

So as much as I hate how weird it is, and how frustrating it is not to have strong typing... i respect the heck out of it.

Re: PHP Sucks

#8

Post by leftnode » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

I used to feel the same way a lot of times, a shame it seems for being a PHP dev. Now, I don't care. I've been using it since 1999, and I use it to get stuff done.

My customers and users of my applications don't care what it's written in.

But, you should definitely learn more languages as a programmer.

> And to anyone considering programming as a career, or trying to get into it... stay away from PHP.

This is the part I disagree with the most. The language is getting better and better with every release. It's incredibly fast, much safer to use (the Error exception type, scalar static type hints, all the garbage from the early 2000's has been removed), and easy to work with. The ecosystem (with the introduction of Composer) has _completely_ changed and reinvigorated the language. It's easily one of the best package managers out there. I definitely recommend giving PHP a look or a second change if you've written it off.

Re: PHP Sucks

#9

Post by spriggan3 » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

Well now you got a bunch of alternatives :

Asp.net on linux, Go, Elixir, Python, Ruby,Java ...

PHP kinda saved itself when it got Java like classes(which are fairly rigid thus allowed retrofitting "type safety" in PHP) which allowed engineers to write large and maintainable codebases (Symfony,Doctrine...).

So again, no need to complain, go see your manager and try to convince him to try an alternative solution. Of course if you're using a CMS like Worpdress or Magento it might be a bit more complicated to migrate. But for projects started from scratch frankly, an engineer that can write a Symfony/Doctrine app can easily switch to Asp.net, it's exactly the same level of complexity.

Re: PHP Sucks

#10

Post by rob74 » Thu, Jun 16, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

"The 2016 StackOverflow Survey puts PHP developers as the least paid" - which is very unfair. I think PHP developers should actually get paid more as compensation for having to put up with PHP on a day-to-day basis, but that's just me unfortunately...