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Love this comment. I'm a PHP dev. I do care about my code though. I think you can write niceish code, even with a shitty language.

lj3 10y ago
In your opinion, what does that look like for PHP? Most of the projects I've seen tend to go overboard on the java-like OOP declarations.
- napsterbr 10y ago
  Take a look at phabricator's code. Great example of a good, well-designed application built on top of php.
  - lj3 10y ago
    I can't say I agree. That code base resembles Java in all the wrong ways.
bpicolo 10y ago
PHP always reminds me of the Dijkstra quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
- Jach 10y ago
  Me too. My first language was PHP, I wonder what that's done to me. :) I still appreciate it, and kind of wish other languages had a "from webdevstuff import *" feature that would just bring everything I might need for the purpose of web dev into the namespace, rather than many lines of imports from sometimes obscure paths. I can't get on the hate wagon with the rest of the community. I'll avoid using it to start anything new, of course, but I'd take it over any other mainstream option. Give me Clojure or Lisp and I'll be happiest though.
- NormlOverrated 10y ago
  My first language was Pascal. The concept of combining strings and integers in PHP without any conversion was scary and magical to me at first, but the damn thing worked, as long as you were careful. I still get mad at people who complain about type coercion because they expect their programming language of choice to read their minds and wipe their ass. And Dijkstra was kidding. As is Rasmus when he says he'll restart Apache every 10 requests. Hyperbole. Learn languages instead of a language and it'll click. It has to.
  - GordonS 10y ago
    I think this is great comment, and I can really relate to a lot of it. I especially liked this: > Learn languages instead of a language and it'll click. I started at 5 or 6 with Basic, then progressed to Object Pascal early on, then C, C++, PHP, Java and finally Javascript and C# - I believe this wide experience has served me well over my almost 30 years' of programming (Christmas I'm getting old!). I think there is a time and a place for 'just get shit done, fast', as well as spending time building 'elegant' code. But, if anything, the compromise between these 2 is possibly the thing I struggle with most.
- astrostl 10y ago
  I never quite get these kind of comments. Scores of developers that were raised on BASIC assert that knowledge of BASIC gives you brain damage. Presumably, they do not consider themselves to be brain-damaged. Similar things happen with, say, products of public schooling. Which isn't to advance an, "I was spanked and I turned out fine..." kind of argument. Even if that's true, we can establish higher floors than "fine." It's the self-defeating hysterics around the presentation that make it come off the wrong way to me.

lj3 10y ago

In your opinion, what does that look like for PHP? Most of the projects I've seen tend to go overboard on the java-like OOP declarations.

napsterbr 10y ago
Take a look at phabricator's code. Great example of a good, well-designed application built on top of php.
- lj3 10y ago
  I can't say I agree. That code base resembles Java in all the wrong ways.

bpicolo 10y ago

PHP always reminds me of the Dijkstra quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

Jach 10y ago
Me too. My first language was PHP, I wonder what that's done to me. :) I still appreciate it, and kind of wish other languages had a "from webdevstuff import *" feature that would just bring everything I might need for the purpose of web dev into the namespace, rather than many lines of imports from sometimes obscure paths. I can't get on the hate wagon with the rest of the community. I'll avoid using it to start anything new, of course, but I'd take it over any other mainstream option. Give me Clojure or Lisp and I'll be happiest though.
NormlOverrated 10y ago
My first language was Pascal. The concept of combining strings and integers in PHP without any conversion was scary and magical to me at first, but the damn thing worked, as long as you were careful. I still get mad at people who complain about type coercion because they expect their programming language of choice to read their minds and wipe their ass. And Dijkstra was kidding. As is Rasmus when he says he'll restart Apache every 10 requests. Hyperbole. Learn languages instead of a language and it'll click. It has to.
- GordonS 10y ago
  I think this is great comment, and I can really relate to a lot of it. I especially liked this: > Learn languages instead of a language and it'll click. I started at 5 or 6 with Basic, then progressed to Object Pascal early on, then C, C++, PHP, Java and finally Javascript and C# - I believe this wide experience has served me well over my almost 30 years' of programming (Christmas I'm getting old!). I think there is a time and a place for 'just get shit done, fast', as well as spending time building 'elegant' code. But, if anything, the compromise between these 2 is possibly the thing I struggle with most.
astrostl 10y ago
I never quite get these kind of comments. Scores of developers that were raised on BASIC assert that knowledge of BASIC gives you brain damage. Presumably, they do not consider themselves to be brain-damaged. Similar things happen with, say, products of public schooling. Which isn't to advance an, "I was spanked and I turned out fine..." kind of argument. Even if that's true, we can establish higher floors than "fine." It's the self-defeating hysterics around the presentation that make it come off the wrong way to me.