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I'm rewriting a personal project from Go into PHP. Some folks might call that backward. I call it solving a problem with the right tool.

omginternets 6y ago
Go may not be the best language for your project, but what makes PHP better than the entire set of languages that aren't Go?
- bovermyer 6y ago
  The two best reasons are these: 1. The Laravel ecosystem. 2. I have over ten years of PHP experience.
  - omginternets 6y ago
    Using PHP sounds like a perfectly sensible choice, given your circumstances. Your argument falls short of convincing that PHP is the best tool for _everyone_, though. 1. I'm not aware of any non-trivial feature in Laravel that isn't matched by e.g. Rails, Django, Elixir, or indeed any sufficiently modern web framework. 2. This speaks more to where your comfort zone resides than any intrinsic merit of the language/ecosystem. To be clear: there's nothing wrong with your using PHP. I'm just left wondering what your initial point was... that PHP is your favorite language?
    - bovermyer 6y ago
      I'll grant both of those points, with the caveat that I wasn't trying to say that PHP is the best choice for anyone to solve my project's problem set, but rather the best choice for me.
    - smoe 6y ago
      I'm also wondering about the initial point, but ... Is there ever a best tool for _everyone_? I have only ever been convinced that something is the best tool for a job, when taking into a account a lot of context, exact requirements, available resources, etc. Otherwise you are almost always left with quite a large number of options that are equal for the information available and you can basically choose from by rolling dice. Regarding 2) I think it goes beyond comfort zone. I have seen plenty of completely chaotic, unmaintainable code bases due to the initial developer(s) starting the project without any prior experience of the technology. Of course many paths lead to chaos, but I would wary to start anything time critical in something too different to what I'm already quite comfortable in

omginternets 6y ago

Go may not be the best language for your project, but what makes PHP better than the entire set of languages that aren't Go?

bovermyer 6y ago
The two best reasons are these: 1. The Laravel ecosystem. 2. I have over ten years of PHP experience.
- omginternets 6y ago
  Using PHP sounds like a perfectly sensible choice, given your circumstances. Your argument falls short of convincing that PHP is the best tool for _everyone_, though. 1. I'm not aware of any non-trivial feature in Laravel that isn't matched by e.g. Rails, Django, Elixir, or indeed any sufficiently modern web framework. 2. This speaks more to where your comfort zone resides than any intrinsic merit of the language/ecosystem. To be clear: there's nothing wrong with your using PHP. I'm just left wondering what your initial point was... that PHP is your favorite language?
  - bovermyer 6y ago
    I'll grant both of those points, with the caveat that I wasn't trying to say that PHP is the best choice for anyone to solve my project's problem set, but rather the best choice for me.
  - smoe 6y ago
    I'm also wondering about the initial point, but ... Is there ever a best tool for _everyone_? I have only ever been convinced that something is the best tool for a job, when taking into a account a lot of context, exact requirements, available resources, etc. Otherwise you are almost always left with quite a large number of options that are equal for the information available and you can basically choose from by rolling dice. Regarding 2) I think it goes beyond comfort zone. I have seen plenty of completely chaotic, unmaintainable code bases due to the initial developer(s) starting the project without any prior experience of the technology. Of course many paths lead to chaos, but I would wary to start anything time critical in something too different to what I'm already quite comfortable in