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Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.

by arpa 7y ago

sterileopinions 7y ago
There are decades of history behind every criticism of PHP? Do you just want people to ignore them? PHP can be a bit of a punching bag, even when it's not topical. But it's not exactly unwarranted.
- mobilemidget 7y ago
  You almost imply as if there is a scripting or programming language that is perfect and free of any criticism or disadvantage?
  - sterileopinions 7y ago
    Where do I do that?
- taneq 7y ago
  A lot of the criticisms were perfectly valid security concerns (some of the old default behaviour was insecure by design). Fortunately the language has evolved a lot and is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Also a lot of the criticisms were based on PHP being an easy "beginner language" and so being used by a lot of people who had no idea what they were doing. If people have valid criticisms of modern PHP then by all means air them, but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004.
  - sterileopinions 7y ago
    > but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004. Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language. It's a bit silly to put a time cap on those characteristics that just aren't going to change. It's really silly to assume people are going to change their tune on a tech stack many actively choose to avoid and have no way of caring or seeing what's changed within the last 3 or so years.
    - notyourday 7y ago
      > Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language. Unless the software developers are paid to wax poetically about those unsavory features rather than affect whatever gets the $$ in the door to pay the software developers salaries "Lolz, lookz at PHPz stupid." is irrelevant.
      - sterileopinions 7y ago
        Most people don't get paid to post opinions on the internet, or any kind of public forum.
- mrunkel 7y ago
  Those decades of history are largely talking about a PHP that doesn't exist any more. Yes, the language has it's warts, but if you think $language doesn't, you're just new to it. There are many large PHP projects that generate tons of revenue. New frameworks like Laravel and Symfony 4 make whipping out MVPs that can scale pretty damn easy.
  - sterileopinions 7y ago
    >There are many large PHP projects that generate tons of revenue. Okay, but that doesn't negate any of the criticisms about PHP nor does it suddenly wipe out decades of built up reputation.
- dangerface 7y ago
  Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for. learn your tools.
  - sterileopinions 7y ago
    You're assuming the criticisms between different languages are equatable. It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history. Invoking platitudes like "the right tool for the job" is irrelevant and isn't going to make that history go away suddenly.
    - dangerface 7y ago
      > It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history. Because no other language has a history? Look at C it has a coloured history, it has a reputation like any other language, C vs C++, it has bad things like the lack of memory safety, it lacks concepts like object orientation and so on and so on. No PHP is not special in its flaws.
  - triceratops 7y ago
    It's funny you should mention tools. This article uses exactly that analogy to explain why PHP is an awful tool for any job. https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
    - arpa 7y ago
      Actually, hating on PHP is much older. Heck, if we are to descend into depths of history, let's go straight to the unix haters' handbook and let's find out just why the most ubiquitous and popular server operating system sucks on the most fundamental level.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
lolc 7y ago
The best thing about PHP is that it often serves as a good model of how not to solve technical problems. A lot of people have experience with it so taking examples from PHP resonates with them. PHP is getting worse in this regard because the current implementation fixes quite a few things. Unfixable things remain though and PHP will keep serving as a bad example in the future.
Dumblydorr 7y ago
SAS is a valid tool as well, many colleagues in healthcare research use it. Useful sure, but that Doesn't mean STATA, R, and Python users will heal their scar tissue over using that awful software. I could calculate regressions with pencil and paper but that valid tool is just not performant.
notyourday 7y ago
> Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild And this, ladies and gentlemen, is whom you should hire as your tech leadership. He will get your product shipped in a reasonable amount of time, rather than rewrite an app that is making you $2 million a month in Go because some new log ingestion framework wants protobufs so you can query "what are the new browser agents that we have never seen before".
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  That's a really big claim based on a single post that was whining into the void about someone else making a joke about a language. It even says "(JOKING)" in the article.
  - arpa 7y ago
    It says JOKING about using php, because hurr durr php is stupid caveman language hurr durr of course you shouldn't use it. Idiot. That's dismissive, belittling and straightforward insulting. Yet of course everybody jacks off about elixir or scala or blogs running on custom assembly coded httpd. Because THAT'S smart. And php's bad and stupid. Okay, gotcha. You converted me. I will stop whining and go code my homepage in haskell. That should keep me busy for a year or so.
ionforce 7y ago
This is a false equivalence. Its popularity doesn't make it "valid" for some criterion.
- arpa 7y ago
  The amount of successful systems based on it is a valid criterion.
triceratops 7y ago
Here's a classic article that addresses exactly your criticisms: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.

by arpa 7y ago

Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.

sterileopinions 7y ago

There are decades of history behind every criticism of PHP? Do you just want people to ignore them? PHP can be a bit of a punching bag, even when it's not topical. But it's not exactly unwarranted.

mobilemidget 7y ago
You almost imply as if there is a scripting or programming language that is perfect and free of any criticism or disadvantage?
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  Where do I do that?
taneq 7y ago
A lot of the criticisms were perfectly valid security concerns (some of the old default behaviour was insecure by design). Fortunately the language has evolved a lot and is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Also a lot of the criticisms were based on PHP being an easy "beginner language" and so being used by a lot of people who had no idea what they were doing. If people have valid criticisms of modern PHP then by all means air them, but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004.
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  > but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004. Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language. It's a bit silly to put a time cap on those characteristics that just aren't going to change. It's really silly to assume people are going to change their tune on a tech stack many actively choose to avoid and have no way of caring or seeing what's changed within the last 3 or so years.
  - notyourday 7y ago
    > Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language. Unless the software developers are paid to wax poetically about those unsavory features rather than affect whatever gets the $$ in the door to pay the software developers salaries "Lolz, lookz at PHPz stupid." is irrelevant.
    - sterileopinions 7y ago
      Most people don't get paid to post opinions on the internet, or any kind of public forum.
mrunkel 7y ago
Those decades of history are largely talking about a PHP that doesn't exist any more. Yes, the language has it's warts, but if you think $language doesn't, you're just new to it. There are many large PHP projects that generate tons of revenue. New frameworks like Laravel and Symfony 4 make whipping out MVPs that can scale pretty damn easy.
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  >There are many large PHP projects that generate tons of revenue. Okay, but that doesn't negate any of the criticisms about PHP nor does it suddenly wipe out decades of built up reputation.
dangerface 7y ago
Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for. learn your tools.
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  You're assuming the criticisms between different languages are equatable. It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history. Invoking platitudes like "the right tool for the job" is irrelevant and isn't going to make that history go away suddenly.
  - dangerface 7y ago
    > It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history. Because no other language has a history? Look at C it has a coloured history, it has a reputation like any other language, C vs C++, it has bad things like the lack of memory safety, it lacks concepts like object orientation and so on and so on. No PHP is not special in its flaws.
- triceratops 7y ago
  It's funny you should mention tools. This article uses exactly that analogy to explain why PHP is an awful tool for any job. https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
  - arpa 7y ago
    Actually, hating on PHP is much older. Heck, if we are to descend into depths of history, let's go straight to the unix haters' handbook and let's find out just why the most ubiquitous and popular server operating system sucks on the most fundamental level.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

lolc 7y ago

The best thing about PHP is that it often serves as a good model of how not to solve technical problems. A lot of people have experience with it so taking examples from PHP resonates with them. PHP is getting worse in this regard because the current implementation fixes quite a few things. Unfixable things remain though and PHP will keep serving as a bad example in the future.

Dumblydorr 7y ago

SAS is a valid tool as well, many colleagues in healthcare research use it. Useful sure, but that Doesn't mean STATA, R, and Python users will heal their scar tissue over using that awful software. I could calculate regressions with pencil and paper but that valid tool is just not performant.

notyourday 7y ago

> Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild And this, ladies and gentlemen, is whom you should hire as your tech leadership. He will get your product shipped in a reasonable amount of time, rather than rewrite an app that is making you $2 million a month in Go because some new log ingestion framework wants protobufs so you can query "what are the new browser agents that we have never seen before".

sterileopinions 7y ago
That's a really big claim based on a single post that was whining into the void about someone else making a joke about a language. It even says "(JOKING)" in the article.
- arpa 7y ago
  It says JOKING about using php, because hurr durr php is stupid caveman language hurr durr of course you shouldn't use it. Idiot. That's dismissive, belittling and straightforward insulting. Yet of course everybody jacks off about elixir or scala or blogs running on custom assembly coded httpd. Because THAT'S smart. And php's bad and stupid. Okay, gotcha. You converted me. I will stop whining and go code my homepage in haskell. That should keep me busy for a year or so.

ionforce 7y ago

This is a false equivalence. Its popularity doesn't make it "valid" for some criterion.

arpa 7y ago
The amount of successful systems based on it is a valid criterion.

triceratops 7y ago

Here's a classic article that addresses exactly your criticisms: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/