5 ms·

Why, ohh why, won't this freak of nature (language) just die :-(

by jjuhl 11y ago

jeremiep 11y ago
I've recently found this gem: http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ I haven't laughed this much in a long while. PHP was my first language and indeed I got far away as soon as I knew any better.
codewithcheese 11y ago
I don't use PHP anymore. However, if you want to web program it really is the easiest to get started. So many of my friends who have no interested in programming but want to do simple web stuff learn how to setup apache with PHP and copy paste what they need.
MAGZine 11y ago
Because it's actually not bad for anyone who has written PHP 5.4+ with a modern framework. Yes. Good.
- jjuhl 11y ago
  It may solve your immediate problem. But it's dangerous - there are too many hidden gotchas and situations where you have to know the actual implementation (which can change) to know what it does. It also breaks a lot of conventions established by most other languages, so you really have to be really careful when assuming that "this probably works like I expect" - you may get nasty surprises). Ohh and it's pretty slow compared to other languages (like C++, Lua & Python - just to name a few). And that's not even mentioning the fact that the people implementing it seem to be a case of the "blind leading the blind". Just search for how they tried to fix an integer overflow by testing if "foo>intmax" etc - that's just the tip of the iceberg (who the hell thought that converting strings to integers before comparing them was a good idea?) etc etc. Those guys should not be allowed near language design. So yeah; it's pretty bad.
  - MAGZine 11y ago
    Yikes. PHP's architecture is highly discussed in their mailing lists. If you have such a problem with the language, why don't you just jump in and show everyone the light? I can't believe that you're still talking about things from 2007 or the horribly outdated fractal of bad design article. It's nearly 2016, do things not change in tech over the course of 4 years?
    - jjuhl 11y ago
      When we are talking about PHP I'd tend towards "no". The only thing I trust them to do reliably is "fuck stuff up and get things wrong". They've proven very capable at that over the years and I don't see anything changing that.

Why, ohh why, won't this freak of nature (language) just die :-(

by jjuhl 11y ago

Why, ohh why, won't this freak of nature (language) just die :-(

I've recently found this gem: http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ I haven't laughed this much in a long while. PHP was my first language and indeed I got far away as soon as I knew any better.

codewithcheese 11y ago

I don't use PHP anymore. However, if you want to web program it really is the easiest to get started. So many of my friends who have no interested in programming but want to do simple web stuff learn how to setup apache with PHP and copy paste what they need.

MAGZine 11y ago

Because it's actually not bad for anyone who has written PHP 5.4+ with a modern framework. Yes. Good.

jjuhl 11y ago
It may solve your immediate problem. But it's dangerous - there are too many hidden gotchas and situations where you have to know the actual implementation (which can change) to know what it does. It also breaks a lot of conventions established by most other languages, so you really have to be really careful when assuming that "this probably works like I expect" - you may get nasty surprises). Ohh and it's pretty slow compared to other languages (like C++, Lua & Python - just to name a few). And that's not even mentioning the fact that the people implementing it seem to be a case of the "blind leading the blind". Just search for how they tried to fix an integer overflow by testing if "foo>intmax" etc - that's just the tip of the iceberg (who the hell thought that converting strings to integers before comparing them was a good idea?) etc etc. Those guys should not be allowed near language design. So yeah; it's pretty bad.
- MAGZine 11y ago
  Yikes. PHP's architecture is highly discussed in their mailing lists. If you have such a problem with the language, why don't you just jump in and show everyone the light? I can't believe that you're still talking about things from 2007 or the horribly outdated fractal of bad design article. It's nearly 2016, do things not change in tech over the course of 4 years?
  - jjuhl 11y ago
    When we are talking about PHP I'd tend towards "no". The only thing I trust them to do reliably is "fuck stuff up and get things wrong". They've proven very capable at that over the years and I don't see anything changing that.