5 ms·

Right; Facebook, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap - all serious tech stacks that started and (in the case of the last two) continue to use PHP. Reminds me of: https://

Right; Facebook, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap - all serious tech stacks that started and (in the case of the last two) continue to use PHP. Reminds me of: https://slack.engineering/taking-php-seriously-cf7a60065329 https://slack.engineering/taking-php-seriously-cf7a60065329

foepys 9y ago
Well, Facebook and Wikipedia are using HHVM to execute their PHP code, so at least those two are not really satisfied with PHP. I bet they'd like to rewrite their code in a faster, more memory-efficient, language but are hindered by the complexity of their code base.
ergo14 9y ago
Facebook does not "normal" PHP that much, they use host of languages, including Hack, erlang and lots of Python.
- jackweirdy 9y ago
  Right. That's why I said "Started With".
- urethrafranklin 9y ago
  Most of their code is Hack, and Hack is a superset of PHP (last time I checked all it really adds is static typing and async) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14659729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14659729
  - ergo14 9y ago
    > all it really adds is static typing and async You make that sound like its not a big deal vs vanilla php.
    - urethrafranklin 9y ago
      It's really not. All the sadness and broken-ness of PHP is still there.
      - ADefenestrator 9y ago
        A lot broken-ness is still left for the sake of compatibility (especially since HHVM's open-source), but Collections and type hinting make a huge difference.
jrs95 9y ago
That Slack post is terrible. I can't believe they would site concurrency as a strength of PHP...."Asynchronously curl’ing to localhost (or even another web server) provides a shared-nothing, copy-in/copy-out way of exploiting parallelism." I almost have to wonder if this is satire
nine_k 9y ago
Wikipedia launched in 2001. Facebook launched in 2004. The choice was narrower then. Ruby and Python, while already active, did not have nice web and DB frameworks (both RoR and Django started in 2005). Java was also much less mature, and even more wordy. PHP, on the other had, was easy to get from any shared hoster.
- fulafel 9y ago
  There were many good web libraries/frameworks for Python before Django. One even had a transactional NoSQL object database.
rmc 9y ago
The OpenStreetMap website and editing API is written in Rails, not PHP. I think it was initally some other form of Ruby web application. OSM started in 2004, but the editing API was ported to Rails in 2007ish.

foepys 9y ago

Well, Facebook and Wikipedia are using HHVM to execute their PHP code, so at least those two are not really satisfied with PHP. I bet they'd like to rewrite their code in a faster, more memory-efficient, language but are hindered by the complexity of their code base.

ergo14 9y ago

Facebook does not "normal" PHP that much, they use host of languages, including Hack, erlang and lots of Python.

jackweirdy 9y ago
Right. That's why I said "Started With".
urethrafranklin 9y ago
Most of their code is Hack, and Hack is a superset of PHP (last time I checked all it really adds is static typing and async) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14659729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14659729
- ergo14 9y ago
  > all it really adds is static typing and async You make that sound like its not a big deal vs vanilla php.
  - urethrafranklin 9y ago
    It's really not. All the sadness and broken-ness of PHP is still there.
    - ADefenestrator 9y ago
      A lot broken-ness is still left for the sake of compatibility (especially since HHVM's open-source), but Collections and type hinting make a huge difference.

jrs95 9y ago

That Slack post is terrible. I can't believe they would site concurrency as a strength of PHP...."Asynchronously curl’ing to localhost (or even another web server) provides a shared-nothing, copy-in/copy-out way of exploiting parallelism." I almost have to wonder if this is satire

nine_k 9y ago

Wikipedia launched in 2001. Facebook launched in 2004. The choice was narrower then. Ruby and Python, while already active, did not have nice web and DB frameworks (both RoR and Django started in 2005). Java was also much less mature, and even more wordy. PHP, on the other had, was easy to get from any shared hoster.

fulafel 9y ago
There were many good web libraries/frameworks for Python before Django. One even had a transactional NoSQL object database.

rmc 9y ago

The OpenStreetMap website and editing API is written in Rails, not PHP. I think it was initally some other form of Ruby web application. OSM started in 2004, but the editing API was ported to Rails in 2007ish.