3 ms·

While ruby and python are definitely more sexy (and by extension rails and django), I think its a mistake to dismiss PHP and MySQL has not being worthy of study

While ruby and python are definitely more sexy (and by extension rails and django), I think its a mistake to dismiss PHP and MySQL has not being worthy of study. Take a look at the job boards and see what people are looking for. I think you'll see far more employers looking for MySQL and PHP skills then Postgres and Ruby/Python. For example, It seems like Drupal developers can write their own tickets right now (drupal is a CMS written in PHP/MySQL). You might be better off looking into CMS/frameworks like Drupal or Django. As a 42 year old developer, I say go for it. You have other skills you bring with you. Frankly, these days I look for people who demonstrate maturity and life-long learning skills more then I do a specific skill-set.

davidw 19y ago
Quantity isn't an indicator of quality.
- apathy 19y ago
  Seconded -- there are plenty of godawful Java jobs out there, none of which you likely want. (Unless it's just another tool used for certain libraries in certain applications) PHP isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be, especially PHP5. It has a horrible reputation due to some very bad design 'decisions' made early on, but it has got a lot better. I was talking with some of the core devs on #drupal last night and plenty of them are well aware of RoR and its utility -- web applications are very easy to write and deploy in Rails, but a big modular CMS like Drupal takes a lot of work to do it right. It's iterative, it benefits from a network effect in terms of modules, and frankly it kicks the shit out of Radiant, Bricolage, and any other solution I've used (including hand-rolled jobbies) for that particular problem. So, right tool for the job... it's surprising to me that 'Drupal developers can write their own ticket' because it's actually very easy to use and code to. Ruby and Rails are beginning to (unjustly IMHO) get the same sort of scrutiny simply because bad programmers can use them to quickly create dogshit. It's not the fault of the language, not unless you're using it for the wrong purpose. Python never seems to have got popular enough to attract morons, and thus continues to chug merrily along at Google and elsewhere. The last day I wrote something interesting in Perl was the first day I ported something interesting to Python. I never really looked at Perl the same way again. It has some truly horrific design decisions that can make it easier to write horrible ugly code than to write good code. But, again -- tis a poor craftsman who blames his tools. Having at least a passing familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of various popular tools never hurt anyone.
  - butterfi 19y ago
    >So, right tool for the job... it's surprising to me that 'Drupal developers can write their own ticket' because it's actually very easy to use and code to. Props to you! I've been doing quite a bit of Drupal development over the past year and I haven't met that many people who would say it was very easy. Not to put down drupal, I love it, but easy... eh. Worth the effort, thats my take on it...

davidw 19y ago

Quantity isn't an indicator of quality.

apathy 19y ago
Seconded -- there are plenty of godawful Java jobs out there, none of which you likely want. (Unless it's just another tool used for certain libraries in certain applications) PHP isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be, especially PHP5. It has a horrible reputation due to some very bad design 'decisions' made early on, but it has got a lot better. I was talking with some of the core devs on #drupal last night and plenty of them are well aware of RoR and its utility -- web applications are very easy to write and deploy in Rails, but a big modular CMS like Drupal takes a lot of work to do it right. It's iterative, it benefits from a network effect in terms of modules, and frankly it kicks the shit out of Radiant, Bricolage, and any other solution I've used (including hand-rolled jobbies) for that particular problem. So, right tool for the job... it's surprising to me that 'Drupal developers can write their own ticket' because it's actually very easy to use and code to. Ruby and Rails are beginning to (unjustly IMHO) get the same sort of scrutiny simply because bad programmers can use them to quickly create dogshit. It's not the fault of the language, not unless you're using it for the wrong purpose. Python never seems to have got popular enough to attract morons, and thus continues to chug merrily along at Google and elsewhere. The last day I wrote something interesting in Perl was the first day I ported something interesting to Python. I never really looked at Perl the same way again. It has some truly horrific design decisions that can make it easier to write horrible ugly code than to write good code. But, again -- tis a poor craftsman who blames his tools. Having at least a passing familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of various popular tools never hurt anyone.
- butterfi 19y ago
  >So, right tool for the job... it's surprising to me that 'Drupal developers can write their own ticket' because it's actually very easy to use and code to. Props to you! I've been doing quite a bit of Drupal development over the past year and I haven't met that many people who would say it was very easy. Not to put down drupal, I love it, but easy... eh. Worth the effort, thats my take on it...