31 ms·

Why not try out Hack? It's kind of a cross between PHP and Go. Hack has a real type system, and HHVM is incredibly fast.

kijin 8y ago
Perhaps because they don't want to incur technical debt to a language/runtime that could change at the whim of one company that probably doesn't have other companies' best interests in mind? The speed advantage of HHVM has also been largely erased. Some high-profile PHP sites migrated to HHVM before and up to ~2015, but I haven't heard of a single site doing that since PHP 7.0 came out.
- ilovecaching 8y ago
  > Perhaps because they don't want to incur technical debt to a language/runtime that could change at the whim of one company that probably doesn't have other companies' best interests in mind? How is Go any different?
  - kijin 8y ago
    Go has been well received outside of Google. Wikipedia even has a list of companies known to use Go. I'm not sure how up to date it is, but the list includes Cloudflare and Netflix. At least some of them might have the oomph to fork, take over, or otherwise influence Go if Google ever dropped the ball. Meanwhile, I can't think of any major online service that relies on Hack apart from Facebook and its subsidiaries.
    - pushtheenvelope 8y ago
      Slack does. But I agree with the original point about not fully relying on the whims of a major corporate promoter. Priorities can change within, without clear visibility on the outside.
acomjean 8y ago
There was a time when hack was new and it was so much faster than php. PHP really got their act together (nothing like a little competetive pressure) and made the 7 series that ran at almost the same speed as hack. People are inertial and won't change unless they have too or something is significantly better.
- pushtheenvelope 8y ago
  I fear you are conflating two things: Hack is the language (type system, syntax) while HHVM is the runtime (which can run Hack code, and could PHP until very recently). Your answer on the speed pertains to HHVM.
romanovcode 8y ago
Hack is a dead language, also slower then PHP 7.2

kijin 8y ago

Perhaps because they don't want to incur technical debt to a language/runtime that could change at the whim of one company that probably doesn't have other companies' best interests in mind? The speed advantage of HHVM has also been largely erased. Some high-profile PHP sites migrated to HHVM before and up to ~2015, but I haven't heard of a single site doing that since PHP 7.0 came out.

ilovecaching 8y ago
> Perhaps because they don't want to incur technical debt to a language/runtime that could change at the whim of one company that probably doesn't have other companies' best interests in mind? How is Go any different?
- kijin 8y ago
  Go has been well received outside of Google. Wikipedia even has a list of companies known to use Go. I'm not sure how up to date it is, but the list includes Cloudflare and Netflix. At least some of them might have the oomph to fork, take over, or otherwise influence Go if Google ever dropped the ball. Meanwhile, I can't think of any major online service that relies on Hack apart from Facebook and its subsidiaries.
  - pushtheenvelope 8y ago
    Slack does. But I agree with the original point about not fully relying on the whims of a major corporate promoter. Priorities can change within, without clear visibility on the outside.

acomjean 8y ago

There was a time when hack was new and it was so much faster than php. PHP really got their act together (nothing like a little competetive pressure) and made the 7 series that ran at almost the same speed as hack. People are inertial and won't change unless they have too or something is significantly better.

pushtheenvelope 8y ago
I fear you are conflating two things: Hack is the language (type system, syntax) while HHVM is the runtime (which can run Hack code, and could PHP until very recently). Your answer on the speed pertains to HHVM.

romanovcode 8y ago

Hack is a dead language, also slower then PHP 7.2