4 ms·

Could you explain why? I'm also curious why Facebook, arguably the definition of a modern startup success, chose to remain powered by PHP after they obtained mo

by jeromec 16y ago

Could you explain why? I'm also curious why Facebook, arguably the definition of a modern startup success, chose to remain powered by PHP after they obtained more than enough capital to switch to say Ruby on Rails.

alanh 16y ago
Keep in mind Facebook actually wrote their own PHP interpreter, which doesn’t support eval() (treated like a core language feature by countless crappy developers). And that they are hardly all-PHP, having created and open-sourced a mechanism to shuttle data around between languages.
- jeromec 16y ago
  Yes, Facebook rewrote and released a faster PHP runtime, which means they embraced rather than shunned it. With comments like the GP you'd think FB hobbled along with PHP on its way to becoming as big as it is now.
code_duck 16y ago
I recall reading that they wished they could move to Python, but they decided that rewriting their entire base of front-end code would be a bad decision. It was too large of a task (I believe a Facebook engineer covered this when they released HipHop). So, they are basically stuck with PHP and have made the best of it.
- jeromec 16y ago
  Yes, many companies will review all their options once they have plenty of capital, and make decisions based on what's best for their situation. For example, Twitter was reported to be switching from Ruby on Rails to PHP or Java amidst all their uptime troubles. http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoning-ruby-on-rails/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoni... My point is that choice of language is not what will likely stand in your way of becoming a monumental startup success. Yet people will insist on promoting language wars as if it will.
  - code_duck 16y ago
    Paul G. has given Lisp a lot of credit for enabling ViaWeb to push out new features in minimal time, compared to competitors who were using languages such as Java. While your choice of language might not be a make-or-break decision, it's good to have all the advantages you can get. (I think Twitter ended up using Scala, didn't they?)
    - jeromec 16y ago
      We could always do an "Ask PG" to clarify, but my understanding of what happened with ViaWeb is you had a group of smart young people innovating on a problem against bulky institutional competitors. When asked who had an offering even close to what they did they said no one. (You might even say they were the first YC modeled company!) Viewed this way I'd say the success was about the people, not the language; they simply used their tool of choice. I don't know what's the "official" (or real) story on current Twitter architecture.
      - code_duck 16y ago
        Right, their success was not purely about the language, I'm just saying it helped (rather, he said it helped). This is drawn from my recollection of reading an article pg wrote. I could find the article if anyone is interested (it is an article about how great lisp is, not specifically the history of ViaWeb, I think). I agree that some people take the choice of language and architecture a little to seriously. Of course you can start a blockbuster business on PHP and MySQL - people prove that frequently!
        jeromec 16y ago
        Yes, I agree any creator needs an able tool, but that's a clear strength of PHP when it comes to Web deployment. That's a fact. I believe people should use whatever they feel they can get the job done with, even if it's BASIC (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257866 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257866), because focusing on a language more than what it is you're actually trying to accomplish IMO is missing the point.
jhpriestley 16y ago
Why PHP is not a good idea: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-crawling-horrors-of-PHP http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-crawling-horrors-of-PHP Why facebook has stayed on PHP: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-PHP?q=facebook+php http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-...

by jeromec 16y ago

alanh 16y ago

Keep in mind Facebook actually wrote their own PHP interpreter, which doesn’t support eval() (treated like a core language feature by countless crappy developers). And that they are hardly all-PHP, having created and open-sourced a mechanism to shuttle data around between languages.

jeromec 16y ago
Yes, Facebook rewrote and released a faster PHP runtime, which means they embraced rather than shunned it. With comments like the GP you'd think FB hobbled along with PHP on its way to becoming as big as it is now.

code_duck 16y ago

I recall reading that they wished they could move to Python, but they decided that rewriting their entire base of front-end code would be a bad decision. It was too large of a task (I believe a Facebook engineer covered this when they released HipHop). So, they are basically stuck with PHP and have made the best of it.

jeromec 16y ago
Yes, many companies will review all their options once they have plenty of capital, and make decisions based on what's best for their situation. For example, Twitter was reported to be switching from Ruby on Rails to PHP or Java amidst all their uptime troubles. http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoning-ruby-on-rails/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/05/01/twitter-said-to-be-abandoni... My point is that choice of language is not what will likely stand in your way of becoming a monumental startup success. Yet people will insist on promoting language wars as if it will.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Paul G. has given Lisp a lot of credit for enabling ViaWeb to push out new features in minimal time, compared to competitors who were using languages such as Java. While your choice of language might not be a make-or-break decision, it's good to have all the advantages you can get. (I think Twitter ended up using Scala, didn't they?)
  - jeromec 16y ago
    We could always do an "Ask PG" to clarify, but my understanding of what happened with ViaWeb is you had a group of smart young people innovating on a problem against bulky institutional competitors. When asked who had an offering even close to what they did they said no one. (You might even say they were the first YC modeled company!) Viewed this way I'd say the success was about the people, not the language; they simply used their tool of choice. I don't know what's the "official" (or real) story on current Twitter architecture.
    - code_duck 16y ago
      Right, their success was not purely about the language, I'm just saying it helped (rather, he said it helped). This is drawn from my recollection of reading an article pg wrote. I could find the article if anyone is interested (it is an article about how great lisp is, not specifically the history of ViaWeb, I think). I agree that some people take the choice of language and architecture a little to seriously. Of course you can start a blockbuster business on PHP and MySQL - people prove that frequently!
      - jeromec 16y ago
        Yes, I agree any creator needs an able tool, but that's a clear strength of PHP when it comes to Web deployment. That's a fact. I believe people should use whatever they feel they can get the job done with, even if it's BASIC (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257866 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257866), because focusing on a language more than what it is you're actually trying to accomplish IMO is missing the point.

jhpriestley 16y ago

Why PHP is not a good idea: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-crawling-horrors-of-PHP http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-crawling-horrors-of-PHP Why facebook has stayed on PHP: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-PHP?q=facebook+php http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-...