6 ms·

Probably because you overestimate the added value of Python and Ruby over PHP and underestimate the cost of language migration. Language is not that important.

Probably because you overestimate the added value of Python and Ruby over PHP and underestimate the cost of language migration. Language is not that important. Your engineers are. They will easily compensate for suboptimal tools. The best hint for this is that most (>70%) of the money goes into salaries. Not software. Not hardware. Not office space. Salaries.

olalonde 16y ago
> Language is not that important. Your engineers are. They will easily compensate for suboptimal tools. That's exactly his point: it's much harder to find great engineers who want to use PHP. Disclosure: I'm a PHP developer who has had to hire PHP developers in the past.
- shin_lao 16y ago
  I disagree with this. It shows a lack of maturity to reject a job over a specific tool.
  - msie 16y ago
    Why take a job where you would be working with a language that makes you miserable? It would be bad for both you and the company when you leave in several weeks.
  - billpg 16y ago
    I've turned down a job before specifically because I didn't want n years using MUMPS on my CV. (Okay, they didn't actually offer me the job, but I would have turned it down anyway.)
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    What? Lack of maturity? You only live once. I'm not going to spend my formidable years toiling away with tools that make my miserable any more than I would work for a manager who thought yelling/bullying was a valid management technique.
- sanswork 16y ago
  If you think it is difficult recruiting good PHP developers in your area you will have almost no hope getting good Ruby or Python developers. At my office we use a mix of languages. PHP for the services, Ruby for one set of management panels and Python for one of our other systems. So during interviews we're happy with anyone that knows any of these with the intention of cross training when needed. During times when there is a shortage of good PHP developers to be found there is usually a shortage of good developers period.
- lhnz 16y ago
  I would understand why a great engineer might get annoyed by having to use PHP, but I think that the larger quantity of people that do know PHP would probably make it easier to find a great engineer in a pool of people that know PHP.
edanm 16y ago
"The best hint for this is that most (>70%) of the money goes into salaries. Not software." I'm not sure what that proves, considering all the languages we're talking about are free, and the largest price you have to pay is probably for the IDE (which also tends to be free).
tjogin 16y ago
Well, the post does imply that they've had problems recruiting exactly because they're using PHP. It's no mystery to me either, I imagine it must be hard to find great engineers willing to spend all their days dealing with the idiosyncrasies of PHP. Great salaries is a great thing, but what if your competition offers great salaries and a less obnoxious programming environment than PHP (and better hardware, and better office space, for that matter)?
gjm11 16y ago
> most of the money goes into salaries. And, therefore, anything that makes your engineers more or less efficient goes directly to your bottom line. (I agree that the comment you're replying to underestimates the cost of migration. But the problem isn't a failure to understand that salaries are the main cost; that's exactly the thing that makes moving to a better langage attractive.)
points 16y ago
and if an engineer moans and moans about his tools, and refuses to work in anything but his favorite language, I would say he's an absolutely terrible engineer. Great programmers can make great stuff using anything.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Then hand out the ed editor to all your engineers who should be programming in assembly. If they're great they'll be just as good with all that, right? Or maybe they'll bitch up to high heaven because doing that makes them slower. Engineers don't bitch about using shitty languages to be whiny Prima Donnas. They bitch because using shitty languages makes them slower. People like to feel like they're getting things done. If they're using a language that looks like it was put together from newspaper clippings every step takes much longer than it does with proper tools. And that makes people mad. In fact, I would go so far as to say the ones who don't bitch are the absolutely terrible engineers because they must be doing it just for the billable hours. Go find the most genius engineer you can in any other field and make him work with the crappiest tools you can find that he can still eventually get his work done with and see how well your assertion holds.
  - points 16y ago
    Yes but good coders figure a way around it. Forced to use PHP? And it's crappy and slow to build stuff in? So write some tools that compile to PHP. What I'm saying is that great programmers work with the limitations and build the tools they need to make the limitations moot.
    - prodigal_erik 16y ago
      PHP isn't even a good compilation target. There's no native FFI (you can't write pure PHP code that makes arbitrary syscalls), the extension interface exposes extremely brittle guts of the interpreter, it performs very poorly (compared to, e.g., JVM bytecode), and calling user-defined functions to work around the stupid misbehavior of the builtins (e.g., == which isn't even an equivalence relation) is only going to make its performance worse.

olalonde 16y ago

> Language is not that important. Your engineers are. They will easily compensate for suboptimal tools. That's exactly his point: it's much harder to find great engineers who want to use PHP. Disclosure: I'm a PHP developer who has had to hire PHP developers in the past.

shin_lao 16y ago
I disagree with this. It shows a lack of maturity to reject a job over a specific tool.
- msie 16y ago
  Why take a job where you would be working with a language that makes you miserable? It would be bad for both you and the company when you leave in several weeks.
- billpg 16y ago
  I've turned down a job before specifically because I didn't want n years using MUMPS on my CV. (Okay, they didn't actually offer me the job, but I would have turned it down anyway.)
- loewenskind 16y ago
  What? Lack of maturity? You only live once. I'm not going to spend my formidable years toiling away with tools that make my miserable any more than I would work for a manager who thought yelling/bullying was a valid management technique.
sanswork 16y ago
If you think it is difficult recruiting good PHP developers in your area you will have almost no hope getting good Ruby or Python developers. At my office we use a mix of languages. PHP for the services, Ruby for one set of management panels and Python for one of our other systems. So during interviews we're happy with anyone that knows any of these with the intention of cross training when needed. During times when there is a shortage of good PHP developers to be found there is usually a shortage of good developers period.
lhnz 16y ago
I would understand why a great engineer might get annoyed by having to use PHP, but I think that the larger quantity of people that do know PHP would probably make it easier to find a great engineer in a pool of people that know PHP.

edanm 16y ago

"The best hint for this is that most (>70%) of the money goes into salaries. Not software." I'm not sure what that proves, considering all the languages we're talking about are free, and the largest price you have to pay is probably for the IDE (which also tends to be free).

tjogin 16y ago

Well, the post does imply that they've had problems recruiting exactly because they're using PHP. It's no mystery to me either, I imagine it must be hard to find great engineers willing to spend all their days dealing with the idiosyncrasies of PHP. Great salaries is a great thing, but what if your competition offers great salaries and a less obnoxious programming environment than PHP (and better hardware, and better office space, for that matter)?

gjm11 16y ago

> most of the money goes into salaries. And, therefore, anything that makes your engineers more or less efficient goes directly to your bottom line. (I agree that the comment you're replying to underestimates the cost of migration. But the problem isn't a failure to understand that salaries are the main cost; that's exactly the thing that makes moving to a better langage attractive.)

points 16y ago

and if an engineer moans and moans about his tools, and refuses to work in anything but his favorite language, I would say he's an absolutely terrible engineer. Great programmers can make great stuff using anything.

loewenskind 16y ago
Then hand out the ed editor to all your engineers who should be programming in assembly. If they're great they'll be just as good with all that, right? Or maybe they'll bitch up to high heaven because doing that makes them slower. Engineers don't bitch about using shitty languages to be whiny Prima Donnas. They bitch because using shitty languages makes them slower. People like to feel like they're getting things done. If they're using a language that looks like it was put together from newspaper clippings every step takes much longer than it does with proper tools. And that makes people mad. In fact, I would go so far as to say the ones who don't bitch are the absolutely terrible engineers because they must be doing it just for the billable hours. Go find the most genius engineer you can in any other field and make him work with the crappiest tools you can find that he can still eventually get his work done with and see how well your assertion holds.
- points 16y ago
  Yes but good coders figure a way around it. Forced to use PHP? And it's crappy and slow to build stuff in? So write some tools that compile to PHP. What I'm saying is that great programmers work with the limitations and build the tools they need to make the limitations moot.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    PHP isn't even a good compilation target. There's no native FFI (you can't write pure PHP code that makes arbitrary syscalls), the extension interface exposes extremely brittle guts of the interpreter, it performs very poorly (compared to, e.g., JVM bytecode), and calling user-defined functions to work around the stupid misbehavior of the builtins (e.g., == which isn't even an equivalence relation) is only going to make its performance worse.