4 ms·

The end user cares when a SQL injection vulnerability takes down their site or when their site turns into a massive pile of tech debt for which any improvement

The end user cares when a SQL injection vulnerability takes down their site or when their site turns into a massive pile of tech debt for which any improvement takes weeks. I agree that PHP was designed to be a bad language but easy for noobs. That's the point. By having a low learning curve it has displaced vastly better choices. And that's why I'm suggesting we need to fight social hacks with other social hacks.

sevensor 10y ago
I think you're right on strategy (fight social hacks with other social hacks) and wrong on tactics (contempt and shaming.) While contempt and elitism might have challenged you to try harder languages, they're going to make a lot of people circle the wagons. I think we see this narrative a lot with Haskell. Although the Haskell community is reportedly very friendly once you actually try to work with Haskell, I've seen a lot of comments by its enthusiasts denigrating "lesser" languages. So I agree with the OP. There's not a lot to be gained by telling people they're stupid. By and large this just causes them to entrench their positions. (See also: electoral politics.) I think there's much more ground to be gained by deliberately blurring the lines (a different social hack.) Examples of this include Cygwin and optional type systems for dynamic languages.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I'm not so sure it does cause people to entrench their positions. As an example within tech, sneering and contempt have enabled social justice to spread wildly. Look at how many projects/conferences have codes of conduct now, compared to a few years ago, and at how many technology companies are throwing money at diversity efforts. I don't know if it's the right strategy, but it's definitively not a strategy I can immediately dismiss.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    I see your point about social justice, but I think it isn't a great example. While there were and are some committed racist and misogynist individuals in the world, by and large people as well as organizations were indifferent. They didn't have any position to speak of, and so they were blindsided and easily swayed when the shaming and contempt came around. They said "hey, that's not us, we're not like that!" and fell in line with the social justice position. Programming language communities, on the other hand, have a real investment in their language of choice. It's not that they're indifferent to the issue of whether PHP is a terrible language; they actively choose PHP, so when they're attacked they move to defend.

sevensor 10y ago

I think you're right on strategy (fight social hacks with other social hacks) and wrong on tactics (contempt and shaming.) While contempt and elitism might have challenged you to try harder languages, they're going to make a lot of people circle the wagons. I think we see this narrative a lot with Haskell. Although the Haskell community is reportedly very friendly once you actually try to work with Haskell, I've seen a lot of comments by its enthusiasts denigrating "lesser" languages. So I agree with the OP. There's not a lot to be gained by telling people they're stupid. By and large this just causes them to entrench their positions. (See also: electoral politics.) I think there's much more ground to be gained by deliberately blurring the lines (a different social hack.) Examples of this include Cygwin and optional type systems for dynamic languages.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I'm not so sure it does cause people to entrench their positions. As an example within tech, sneering and contempt have enabled social justice to spread wildly. Look at how many projects/conferences have codes of conduct now, compared to a few years ago, and at how many technology companies are throwing money at diversity efforts. I don't know if it's the right strategy, but it's definitively not a strategy I can immediately dismiss.
- sevensor 10y ago
  I see your point about social justice, but I think it isn't a great example. While there were and are some committed racist and misogynist individuals in the world, by and large people as well as organizations were indifferent. They didn't have any position to speak of, and so they were blindsided and easily swayed when the shaming and contempt came around. They said "hey, that's not us, we're not like that!" and fell in line with the social justice position. Programming language communities, on the other hand, have a real investment in their language of choice. It's not that they're indifferent to the issue of whether PHP is a terrible language; they actively choose PHP, so when they're attacked they move to defend.