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PHP is the worst programming language ever made in current widespread use. There was never an excuse to use it, there were always other options, even many years

PHP is the worst programming language ever made in current widespread use. There was never an excuse to use it, there were always other options, even many years ago. > "To them, we say “think again.” We believe that the only limit PHP has is the limit you set." You shouldn't be writing PHP in the first place, and should slowly work to (incrementally, slowly) shift your codebase into any other programming language in existence if it is already written in PHP. The core language is terribly designed. PHP 7 did not fix this. Even JavaScript is miles better (PHP has a type system equally as bad, if not worse). Of course, this sentiment is unpopular, because you're never supposed to rewrite anything even incrementally, and Popular Means Quality, and saying otherwise is heresy. I propose the more radical solution of killing PHP entirely (again, incrementally, slowly), and replace it entirely with the language of your choosing (maybe that's Go).

hackthemack 8y ago
> There was never an excuse to use it, there were always other options, even many years ago. What was the alternative to using php from 1996 to 2000 if you were running a small mom and pop isp and your customer base was requesting shopping carts, photo galleries, and blog like web capabilities? In that era, the servers were pentiums of 75MHz.
- Twirrim 8y ago
  Agreed. Back then you primarily went one of two ways, Perl & PHP. PHP was by far the lowest barrier to development. Easy to enable PHP support in webservers, easy to incrementally increase usage in your platform alongside any static HTML. PHP + mod_php moved away from needing to know what was happening on the server side. Perl and the other cgi-bin integrations could be complicated, involved, requiring more specific configuration on the server side. Sure, it's not _that_ hard to do, but it does present a barrier to entry that PHP / mod_php handily solved.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    By 1999, Zope, C CGIs, TCL (AOLServer), ColdFusion, Delphi HTTP Server, ASP, IIS ISAPI,... More than two possible ways.
    - Twirrim 8y ago
      I'm sorry, I don't see anywhere where I said there were only two ways.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        That is what I take from "Back then you primarily went one of two ways, Perl & PHP.". As if everything else wasn't worth mentioning. Back on my little bubble, the options listed by me were much more relevant.
- lkrubner 8y ago
  When I wrote "PHP is obsolete" I emphasized that it was my favorite language back in 2000. It was a decent answer to the problems of the 1990s, but it has no place in modern life. The response on Hacker News was split: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598309
stabbles 8y ago
> Even JavaScript is miles better (PHP has a type system equally as bad, if not worse). That's just not true. Just one example: PHP will throw runtime errors when (1) an argument type being passed to a function does not match its corresponding declared parameter type and (2) a value being returned from a function does not match the declared function return type. In pure Javascript you can't restrict the types of objects being passed to or returned from a function.
brightball 8y ago
Every language has a purpose, even if it doesn't fit your preferences. For people new to development especially who may have started with some simple static HTML, just being able to rename a .html file to .php on a dirt cheap web host and have it "just work" is such a low barrier to entry that it is a tremendous learning tool. People also like to forget that PHP scales down better than any language out there, making it a no-brainer decision for cheap hosting of small and simple sites. When you start increasing traffic and throughput or building software to run an serious business, of course there are other great options. Just remember that every language has a purpose even if it's not yours, otherwise it wouldn't exist.
furicane 8y ago
Out of curiosity - have you ever actually programmed anything? You're angry, which I can understand, and hateful but you're providing zero facts to support your opinion. You sound like a child deciding what's cool to like and what's cool to bash. Naturally, with nothing to back your opinion up. So, do you even code?
icedchai 8y ago
There is a reason it's still popular. PHP has some advantages: 1) Rapid iteration: Edit a file, hit refresh, see your results. 2) Ease of deployment: SFTP your changes, done (obviously you wouldn't work this way for a serious project...) 3) Simple execution model: each request gets its own thread (or process), each request starts from scratch.
ksenzee 8y ago
> PHP has a type system equally as [sic] bad, if not worse PHP 7's type system is worse than Javascript's type system? I can't imagine any developer who has worked with both those languages agreeing with you. It sounds like you haven't done any serious PHP work for the last ten years or so, and your opinions haven't kept pace with reality.
- AzzieElbab 8y ago
  What type system? In either case, seriously. The best thing that php has going for it is the community. No bs just make it work type of people. Everything else about php is terrifying
cfv 8y ago
Ohhh is that so? Show me how you do the following in Javascript. try{ $exceptionType = rand(1,10) > 5? BadMethodCallException::class : LogicException::class; throw new $exceptionType("smartass"); } catch(BadMethodCallException $typed_1){ file_put_contents('php://stderr', "Bad method, ".$typed_1->getMessage()); } catch(LogicException $typed_2){ file_put_contents('php://stderr', "Bad logic, ".$typed_2->getMessage()); } or this: function lieToMe(PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer $mailer){ } or this: $mailStrategy = new MailStrategy(); $mailStrategy("email@example.com","Subject","Body"); Or any of the other actually cool things you get with PHP if you can cope with the language. It's sad to see people who probably can't program a microwave diss an entire language they haven't ever actually used.

hackthemack 8y ago

> There was never an excuse to use it, there were always other options, even many years ago. What was the alternative to using php from 1996 to 2000 if you were running a small mom and pop isp and your customer base was requesting shopping carts, photo galleries, and blog like web capabilities? In that era, the servers were pentiums of 75MHz.

Twirrim 8y ago
Agreed. Back then you primarily went one of two ways, Perl & PHP. PHP was by far the lowest barrier to development. Easy to enable PHP support in webservers, easy to incrementally increase usage in your platform alongside any static HTML. PHP + mod_php moved away from needing to know what was happening on the server side. Perl and the other cgi-bin integrations could be complicated, involved, requiring more specific configuration on the server side. Sure, it's not _that_ hard to do, but it does present a barrier to entry that PHP / mod_php handily solved.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  By 1999, Zope, C CGIs, TCL (AOLServer), ColdFusion, Delphi HTTP Server, ASP, IIS ISAPI,... More than two possible ways.
  - Twirrim 8y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't see anywhere where I said there were only two ways.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      That is what I take from "Back then you primarily went one of two ways, Perl & PHP.". As if everything else wasn't worth mentioning. Back on my little bubble, the options listed by me were much more relevant.
lkrubner 8y ago
When I wrote "PHP is obsolete" I emphasized that it was my favorite language back in 2000. It was a decent answer to the problems of the 1990s, but it has no place in modern life. The response on Hacker News was split: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598309

stabbles 8y ago

> Even JavaScript is miles better (PHP has a type system equally as bad, if not worse). That's just not true. Just one example: PHP will throw runtime errors when (1) an argument type being passed to a function does not match its corresponding declared parameter type and (2) a value being returned from a function does not match the declared function return type. In pure Javascript you can't restrict the types of objects being passed to or returned from a function.

brightball 8y ago

Every language has a purpose, even if it doesn't fit your preferences. For people new to development especially who may have started with some simple static HTML, just being able to rename a .html file to .php on a dirt cheap web host and have it "just work" is such a low barrier to entry that it is a tremendous learning tool. People also like to forget that PHP scales down better than any language out there, making it a no-brainer decision for cheap hosting of small and simple sites. When you start increasing traffic and throughput or building software to run an serious business, of course there are other great options. Just remember that every language has a purpose even if it's not yours, otherwise it wouldn't exist.

furicane 8y ago

Out of curiosity - have you ever actually programmed anything? You're angry, which I can understand, and hateful but you're providing zero facts to support your opinion. You sound like a child deciding what's cool to like and what's cool to bash. Naturally, with nothing to back your opinion up. So, do you even code?

icedchai 8y ago

There is a reason it's still popular. PHP has some advantages: 1) Rapid iteration: Edit a file, hit refresh, see your results. 2) Ease of deployment: SFTP your changes, done (obviously you wouldn't work this way for a serious project...) 3) Simple execution model: each request gets its own thread (or process), each request starts from scratch.

ksenzee 8y ago

> PHP has a type system equally as [sic] bad, if not worse PHP 7's type system is worse than Javascript's type system? I can't imagine any developer who has worked with both those languages agreeing with you. It sounds like you haven't done any serious PHP work for the last ten years or so, and your opinions haven't kept pace with reality.

AzzieElbab 8y ago
What type system? In either case, seriously. The best thing that php has going for it is the community. No bs just make it work type of people. Everything else about php is terrifying

cfv 8y ago

Ohhh is that so? Show me how you do the following in Javascript. try{ $exceptionType = rand(1,10) > 5? BadMethodCallException::class : LogicException::class; throw new $exceptionType("smartass"); } catch(BadMethodCallException $typed_1){ file_put_contents('php://stderr', "Bad method, ".$typed_1->getMessage()); } catch(LogicException $typed_2){ file_put_contents('php://stderr', "Bad logic, ".$typed_2->getMessage()); } or this: function lieToMe(PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer $mailer){ } or this: $mailStrategy = new MailStrategy(); $mailStrategy("email@example.com","Subject","Body"); Or any of the other actually cool things you get with PHP if you can cope with the language. It's sad to see people who probably can't program a microwave diss an entire language they haven't ever actually used.