Taking PHP Seriously
slack.engineering
Taking PHP Seriously
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Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#2I've had to do some PHP work recently, on a fairly old school PHP codebase for a high traffic website, after spending most oy my career working in Java and C# (and I still do most of my work in those languages).
I've read a lot of PHP hate over the years, but I've found working with it in practice to be decidedly...not bad. Perhaps the codebase I inherited is better than most. But I've had to make some fairly major updates, and they've proven to be far less painful than I had expected based on the amount of PHP attacks I'd read online.
Maybe the snobbery toward PHP is a good thing? There are some really big PHP-based communities out there, Wordpress being probably the largest. And in these communities, there appears to be a large demand for paid consulting and plugins. Sure, there's a ton of competition on the low end, but it's an area where a really great developer could stand out from the crowd and do very well financially, especially for more complex consulting and dev work since so many good developers turn their noses up at PHP.
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#3I've had to do some PHP work recently, on a fairly old school PHP codebase for a high traffic website, after spending most oy my career working in Java and C# (and I still do most of my work in those languages). I've read a lot of PHP hate over the years, but I've found working with it in practice to be decidedly...not bad. Perhaps the codebase I inherited is better than most. But I've had to make some fairly major u…
As long as you don't mind working on "boring" projects, there is TONS of small businesses in need of custom work to be done. It's very lucrative, because most people like you said, turn their noses up at the thought of it.
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#4I've had to do some PHP work recently, on a fairly old school PHP codebase for a high traffic website, after spending most oy my career working in Java and C# (and I still do most of my work in those languages). I've read a lot of PHP hate over the years, but I've found working with it in practice to be decidedly...not bad. Perhaps the codebase I inherited is better than most. But I've had to make some fairly major u…
The language is not beautiful, it is full of signature and func naming inconsistencies [1] it inherited from C. The devs are ultra-conservative and stubborn to cause BC even at major version bumps (like the forever-incorrect ternary associativity [2][3]). But PHP7 is both fast and productive with many modern first-class features. You can in fact write excellent code without much effort that will handily outperform Python, Ruby and even Node.
The Wordpress codebase [plugin api included], though, is utter garbage.
[1] http://www.phpsadness.com/
[2] http://php.net/manual/en/language.expressions.php
[3] https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg7196... (yes, i asked for this in 2014)
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#5PHP was the first programming language I ever used, so it holds a special place in my heart. And I use it daily at my current job.
I have to disagree with this article. PHP is a heavily flawed language. It's very easy to get started with PHP, but there are too many pitfalls that are too easy to fall into.
Most of the "Virtues of PHP" are available in other web languages if you use the right framework. And if you use those languages you'll benefit from the consistency and predictability that come from having a clear design philosophy from the start.
I don't think PHP is a bad language. It's possible to write good software in PHP, and it's possible to work around the flaws if you really know what you're doing. If your software is already written in PHP, it's probably not worth it to throw it out and rebuild it in something else. But I don't think it's worth the trouble if you have a choice, and I think writing new software in PHP should be avoided.
I'll admit I'm not familiar with HHVM and Hack. Maybe they alleviate PHP's problems.
P.S. Most of the points under "The Case Against PHP" are also issues with Javascript. But the difference is that if you're developing a web application, you have to use Javascript. You don't have to use PHP.
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#6I've had to do some PHP work recently, on a fairly old school PHP codebase for a high traffic website, after spending most oy my career working in Java and C# (and I still do most of my work in those languages). I've read a lot of PHP hate over the years, but I've found working with it in practice to be decidedly...not bad. Perhaps the codebase I inherited is better than most. But I've had to make some fairly major u…
As long as you don't mind working on "boring" projects, there is TONS of small businesses in need of custom work to be done. It's very lucrative, because most people like you said, turn their noses up at the thought of it.
Not-so-small businesses, too.
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#7PHP was the first programming language I ever used, so it holds a special place in my heart. And I use it daily at my current job. I have to disagree with this article. PHP is a heavily flawed language. It's very easy to get started with PHP, but there are too many pitfalls that are too easy to fall into. Most of the "Virtues of PHP" are available in other web languages if you use the right framework. And if you use…
Zero startup time and a serious JIT aren't actually available in Python or Ruby even after all these years.
I would be hesitant to dismiss the significance of those - although I'm admittedly biased, having worked with Keith previously as well as on an erstwhile "competitor" to HHVM (talariatech.com).
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#8Well this is seriously making me rethink my opinion on the PHP workflow, if Hack is as much of a game changer as the article claims? Could anyone here comment on their experiences with it, and its pitfalls?
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#9I've had to do some PHP work recently, on a fairly old school PHP codebase for a high traffic website, after spending most oy my career working in Java and C# (and I still do most of my work in those languages). I've read a lot of PHP hate over the years, but I've found working with it in practice to be decidedly...not bad. Perhaps the codebase I inherited is better than most. But I've had to make some fairly major u…
As long as you don't mind working on "boring" projects, there is TONS of small businesses in need of custom work to be done. It's very lucrative, because most people like you said, turn their noses up at the thought of it.
Boring isn't always bad. Last time I tried to create an interesting project, I ended up with a couple hundred MB of node modules before I'd even done much. :)
Re: Taking PHP Seriously
#10For greenfield project main question would be why? It's not horrible but what do you exactly gain? With so many options around it's actually hard to make a case for PHP (and I have being using it since 2000).