5 ms·

I know PHP is really great (and always has been). But sh*t, there is soooo much bad, no, really really bad PHP code that lives out there. Isn't it?

krapp 5y ago
Sure, but you can say as bad or worse about almost all code in the wild. Almost everything is garbage.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Sturgeon's Law applies.
rtheunissen 5y ago
Yeah, also some incredible literature and worthless spam. Practically infinite expression will inevitably lead to poor results in one corner or another.
mountainriver 5y ago
Yeah in my whole career, the worst codebases I’ve worked on are far and away PHP
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  HAve you never worked with jQuery / Javascript in <script> tags and no real state management other than Local Storage or maybe some cookies? BEFORE webpack/etc so every plugin/package... is linked from the page you're working on? PHP is bad, but my god some of the javascript nightmares and if you fuck up javascript with some recursion you can crash the entire browser.
joseluisq 5y ago
Yeah, same experience for me. Lots of fragile and bloated code bases. And I don't tell you about maintainability nightmare. Javascript in the server is another example. So this is not the fact that PHP people can write useful things with it or that PHP can help them to put food on the table, etc. Here some questions not only for PHP enthusiasts: Are you using the right tool for the job? If so, Are you do it well? Are those programs that you write easy to maintain over the time? Is the language providing you the necessary mechanisms to help you to do so?
Bellamy 5y ago
With a background in Java, both have bad codebases that is impossible to understand and maintain. That's because both have bad developers. Simple, but expensive solution: Rewrite. PHP is not perfect, but it works, and gets better every year. So should the developers who use it, because it's a good choice usually.

krapp 5y ago

Sure, but you can say as bad or worse about almost all code in the wild. Almost everything is garbage.

smitty1e 5y ago
Sturgeon's Law applies.

rtheunissen 5y ago

Yeah, also some incredible literature and worthless spam. Practically infinite expression will inevitably lead to poor results in one corner or another.

mountainriver 5y ago

Yeah in my whole career, the worst codebases I’ve worked on are far and away PHP

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gremlinsinc 5y ago
HAve you never worked with jQuery / Javascript in <script> tags and no real state management other than Local Storage or maybe some cookies? BEFORE webpack/etc so every plugin/package... is linked from the page you're working on? PHP is bad, but my god some of the javascript nightmares and if you fuck up javascript with some recursion you can crash the entire browser.

joseluisq 5y ago

Yeah, same experience for me. Lots of fragile and bloated code bases. And I don't tell you about maintainability nightmare. Javascript in the server is another example. So this is not the fact that PHP people can write useful things with it or that PHP can help them to put food on the table, etc. Here some questions not only for PHP enthusiasts: Are you using the right tool for the job? If so, Are you do it well? Are those programs that you write easy to maintain over the time? Is the language providing you the necessary mechanisms to help you to do so?

Bellamy 5y ago

With a background in Java, both have bad codebases that is impossible to understand and maintain. That's because both have bad developers. Simple, but expensive solution: Rewrite. PHP is not perfect, but it works, and gets better every year. So should the developers who use it, because it's a good choice usually.