4 ms·

Why not PHP on a shared or dedicated hosted server?

by rexreed 4y ago

FinalBriefing 4y ago
I think because that's still very similar to a dedicated server.
alexklarjr 4y ago
and keep data on actual SQL server? No thanks, only boomers do it.
- 0x073 4y ago
  Mongodb works for every problem no need for any old database server.
  - dbbk 4y ago
    Until you want to change your schema
    - 0x073 4y ago
      Schema change? No thanks, only boomers do it. ;)
- rexreed 4y ago
  I use PHP with SQLite just fine. In fact, been doing it since before the non-boomers picked it up.
dgb23 4y ago
I wouldn't recommend PHP to anyone who isn't already invested/emerged in the language. Wordpress for blogs or websites on a shared host with automatic updates and a few select plugins? Yes. Laravel or Symphony for applications? Ok. But just PHP has way too many footguns and doesn't provide nearly enough affordances to make them worth it IMO. Plus it's a language that breaks backwards compatibility way too often, stops support for older versions. You need some sort of protection layer that shields you from all of this. So you might end up with something that is way more complex and slow than it needs to be.
- jraph 4y ago
  > Plus it's a language that breaks backwards compatibility way too often Do you have examples of such compatibility breakages? I noticed Nextcloud and WordPress both seem to lag behind the last version of PHP a bit. But on the other hand I also see such thing in the Java World where people are stuck on Java 8 or 11, when backward compatibility is one of the strength of the language. I also have PHP scripts I wrote for PHP 5.1 and still work unchanged on PHP 8.2, 12 years later. Well, I had to fix some warnings for completely dumb things I did like putting mandatory arguments after optional arguments and I'm not sure why it was working, but the upgrades have been painless for me. Plus, I find the latest PHP version quite pleasant, with the type annotation and other new features of the language, and the execution model where your app doesn't run all the time, its php files are just called by the web server (though php-fpm). No Tomcat or uWSI or unicorn and virtualenvs to manage. But I guess I'm a person who is "already invested/emerged in the language" :-) (I'm also invested in Python, Java and Node.js though)
  - dgb23 4y ago
    > Do you have examples of such compatibility breakages? The wordpress integration test suite broke with PHP 8.0. They seem to be lagging behind for 8.1 and 8.2 as well. Remember new keywords were introduced and code just breaks in weird ways since these versions if you have conflicting names or depend on any library that has conflicting names. There was a somewhat recent article that talked about changes for a string template literals cleanup for the next major version that will break a whole bunch of code as well. In the near future you won't be able to assign new properties on instantiated objects anymore. Think anyone who is creating objects dynamically to be encoded as JSON, rendered as HTML, XML or generating them from parsing/reading any of those things. I expect a lot of breakage and patches here. > I also have PHP scripts I wrote for PHP 5.1 and still work unchanged on PHP 8.2, 12 years later. Well, I had to fix some warnings for completely dumb things I did like putting mandatory arguments after optional arguments and I'm not sure why it was working, but the upgrades have been painless for me. In many cases the warnings, improvements and deprecations make sense. If you have a few PHP projects and use decent tooling you can fix those things often easily and are sometimes glad for it. There might be hidden bugs that are discovered that way. But what about many projects? What about transitive dependencies? PHP is moving fast and makes no excuses. It's simply not a language that prioritizes stability. Often for good reason, but you have to ask yourself it the churn and instability is worth it. > Plus, I find the latest PHP version quite pleasant, with the type annotation and other new features of the language, and the execution model where your app doesn't run all the time, its php files are just called by the web server (though php-fpm). I agree on that last part. That's where PHP shines uniquely IMO. It's really optimized for stateless execution, which makes it very easy to reason about on a macro level. But on a micro level it's tough. There are so many little gotchas and weird behaviors. A death by a thousand cuts.

Why not PHP on a shared or dedicated hosted server?

FinalBriefing 4y ago

I think because that's still very similar to a dedicated server.

alexklarjr 4y ago

and keep data on actual SQL server? No thanks, only boomers do it.

0x073 4y ago
Mongodb works for every problem no need for any old database server.
- dbbk 4y ago
  Until you want to change your schema
  - 0x073 4y ago
    Schema change? No thanks, only boomers do it. ;)
rexreed 4y ago
I use PHP with SQLite just fine. In fact, been doing it since before the non-boomers picked it up.

dgb23 4y ago

I wouldn't recommend PHP to anyone who isn't already invested/emerged in the language. Wordpress for blogs or websites on a shared host with automatic updates and a few select plugins? Yes. Laravel or Symphony for applications? Ok. But just PHP has way too many footguns and doesn't provide nearly enough affordances to make them worth it IMO. Plus it's a language that breaks backwards compatibility way too often, stops support for older versions. You need some sort of protection layer that shields you from all of this. So you might end up with something that is way more complex and slow than it needs to be.

jraph 4y ago
> Plus it's a language that breaks backwards compatibility way too often Do you have examples of such compatibility breakages? I noticed Nextcloud and WordPress both seem to lag behind the last version of PHP a bit. But on the other hand I also see such thing in the Java World where people are stuck on Java 8 or 11, when backward compatibility is one of the strength of the language. I also have PHP scripts I wrote for PHP 5.1 and still work unchanged on PHP 8.2, 12 years later. Well, I had to fix some warnings for completely dumb things I did like putting mandatory arguments after optional arguments and I'm not sure why it was working, but the upgrades have been painless for me. Plus, I find the latest PHP version quite pleasant, with the type annotation and other new features of the language, and the execution model where your app doesn't run all the time, its php files are just called by the web server (though php-fpm). No Tomcat or uWSI or unicorn and virtualenvs to manage. But I guess I'm a person who is "already invested/emerged in the language" :-) (I'm also invested in Python, Java and Node.js though)
- dgb23 4y ago
  > Do you have examples of such compatibility breakages? The wordpress integration test suite broke with PHP 8.0. They seem to be lagging behind for 8.1 and 8.2 as well. Remember new keywords were introduced and code just breaks in weird ways since these versions if you have conflicting names or depend on any library that has conflicting names. There was a somewhat recent article that talked about changes for a string template literals cleanup for the next major version that will break a whole bunch of code as well. In the near future you won't be able to assign new properties on instantiated objects anymore. Think anyone who is creating objects dynamically to be encoded as JSON, rendered as HTML, XML or generating them from parsing/reading any of those things. I expect a lot of breakage and patches here. > I also have PHP scripts I wrote for PHP 5.1 and still work unchanged on PHP 8.2, 12 years later. Well, I had to fix some warnings for completely dumb things I did like putting mandatory arguments after optional arguments and I'm not sure why it was working, but the upgrades have been painless for me. In many cases the warnings, improvements and deprecations make sense. If you have a few PHP projects and use decent tooling you can fix those things often easily and are sometimes glad for it. There might be hidden bugs that are discovered that way. But what about many projects? What about transitive dependencies? PHP is moving fast and makes no excuses. It's simply not a language that prioritizes stability. Often for good reason, but you have to ask yourself it the churn and instability is worth it. > Plus, I find the latest PHP version quite pleasant, with the type annotation and other new features of the language, and the execution model where your app doesn't run all the time, its php files are just called by the web server (though php-fpm). I agree on that last part. That's where PHP shines uniquely IMO. It's really optimized for stateless execution, which makes it very easy to reason about on a macro level. But on a micro level it's tough. There are so many little gotchas and weird behaviors. A death by a thousand cuts.