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> So your complaint is that when you use @ to suppress an error it... suppresses the error? From your edit, you've only been working with PHP for about 6 month

by ceol 15y ago

> So your complaint is that when you use @ to suppress an error it... suppresses the error? From your edit, you've only been working with PHP for about 6 months, so you may not have seen some of the code most others have. Can you imagine, then, diving into a website's back-end to see @ all over? It turns out, the previous developer realized all those nasty notices and errors stopped happening if he slapped a @ on everything. Now your client/boss/friend is pissed because when someone submits their form and they have a space in their name, the entire site crashes, and you have to figure out what's causing it through a tangled web of spaghetti code with no errors. This is the norm in PHP because, like the author said, it makes it incredibly easy to write bad code. > If this one thing that annoys me on HN it's the pervasive anti-PHP snobbery. This isn't anti-PHP snobbery. To write it off as such is an attempt to dismiss most of the (quite valid) complaints. And complaining about someone complaining is really only highlighting your own hypocrisy. As you said, you really don't understand his need to complain. That's fine, but many on HN do. This was a great write-up for all of PHP's downfalls. Some of it is really only complaining about how PHP isn't Python, but there are a lot of fantastic points about language design and how PHP sacrifices consistency for... really no reason at all. So don't assume every complaint about a language is "snobbery" or an attempt at "streed cred" (wut?) Instead, ask yourself why there are so many people writing so many complaints about this one language. Then, ask yourself why you're writing them off.

hardy263 15y ago
> Can you imagine, then, diving into a website's back-end to see @ all over? It turns out, the previous developer realized all those nasty notices and errors stopped happening if he slapped a @ on everything. You've turned something that's a person's fault into something that's the language's fault. Other languages have some sort of warning suppression as well, like Java's @SuppressWarnings or C#'s #pragma warning disable. Although they won't suppress all errors like PHP does, it can still bite you if you don't fix them. It IS snobbery. You're taking a look at other people's code, and judging the language from it. I've written PHP for about 3 years and I've never once used the @ to suppress errors.
- aGHz 15y ago
  The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is a notorious one, even if you personally are disciplined enough to avoid it. Not to mention that I have no idea why the original commenter picked on this. It was listed as one of the 7 or so things that can go wrong with that one single, not unusual line of code. It's not like he had a whole paragraph about why @ is bad.
  - maratd 15y ago
    > The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is a notorious one Nonsense. The @ error suppression is a tool, just like any other. It should be used sparingly, but it does have its uses. I have been writing in PHP for over a decade and I have used it exactly one time. And yes, it irritates me when I see it in other's code all over the place ... which is why I refactor all external PHP code before I place it inside of mine. The amazing thing about PHP is that it has a plethora of tools available and the language doesn't force you to write code in some constrained manner according to what some snob perceives as the right way. The only right way is the way that works and works well. You don't like a feature of PHP? Don't use that feature. Simple as that.
    - aGHz 15y ago
      Ok, let me fix that: "The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is an error suppression tool that is notorious for being misused throughout the community". > I refactor all external PHP code before I place it inside of mine > You don't like a feature of PHP? Don't use that feature. Simple as that. I don't know anything about you, but judging from that attitude you haven't worked in many teams. Of course it's not as simple as that. If I had a penny for every time I had to fix someone not checking that strpos() === FALSE, well, I could fund my own startup. You may have the luxury of refactoring all over the place, but the reality out there is that horrible code like this is left to fester until it causes real business damage.
      - maratd 15y ago
pfraze 15y ago
> This is the norm in PHP because, like the author said, it makes it incredibly easy to write bad code. I do maintenance for a lot of PHP sites at my job, and the code is staggeringly difficult to debug or modify. It's punishment for my sins. PHP was a tool for generating textual data structures (HTML) and it should've been leveraged by another tool for control flow and business logic, but it wasn't. The code I maintain is pre-frameworks; it's got no DRY, no separation of concerns, no design forethought at all. It's just HTML generation that satisfies its needs as they arise. Now PHP is a quirky, mediocre, and capable language that's still really good at generating HTML.
smsm42 15y ago
"This is the norm in PHP because, like the author said, it makes it incredibly easy to write bad code." PHP makes it extremely easy to write ANY code. But since article saying "I've noticed this piece of good code in PHP" is not going to get on HN anytime soon, you get much more attention to bad one. That's like saying Internet is the source of filth because it makes easy to post bad stuff. It makes easy to post all stuff, that's the point. "This was a great write-up for all of PHP's downfalls." These "downfalls" are known and discussed 1000 times. Really, who needs another article about "PHP sucks because I can find 3 functions with inconsistent parameters"? How exactly it is going to make anything better? What exactly does it contribute to the world?
- ceol 15y ago
  > PHP makes it extremely easy to write ANY code. No. PHP makes it easy to write bad code and between normal and challenging to write normal code. This is why Doctrine, the closest thing PHP developers have to SQLAlchemy, needs three ways to declare table and column metadata: a separate YAML file, a separate XML file, and in PHP comments. All three of those methods are awful, and only one allows you to keep the metadata and class in the same file. > These "downfalls" are known and discussed 1000 times. And, like a wiki, it's useful to have them all in one place.
  - smsm42 15y ago
    And again you make the same mistake. You take one solution, you say it doesn't work like your favorite solution (while obviously all proper solutions should be done exactly like the one you prefer, since there's only one right way to do anything and it's, not surprisingly, exactly the way you prefer) and you make it the fault of the language used for it's implementation. How that even makes sense? I write code in a number of languages, and there's nothing "challenging" in writing proper code in PHP. The fact that your example has nothing to do with code quality or language only underlines that. > "And, like a wiki, it's useful to have them all in one place." Maybe, but that article isn't it. PHP has a wiki: http://wiki.php.net/ http://wiki.php.net/. You want to list things you want fixed in PHP and have it in one place? Ask for an account and maintain a page there. Rehashing old tired "strpos doesn't have underscore and str_rot13 has, oh noes!!! I can't use language with missing underscore!!!" is really stale by now and doesn't contribute anything new.

by ceol 15y ago

hardy263 15y ago

> Can you imagine, then, diving into a website's back-end to see @ all over? It turns out, the previous developer realized all those nasty notices and errors stopped happening if he slapped a @ on everything. You've turned something that's a person's fault into something that's the language's fault. Other languages have some sort of warning suppression as well, like Java's @SuppressWarnings or C#'s #pragma warning disable. Although they won't suppress all errors like PHP does, it can still bite you if you don't fix them. It IS snobbery. You're taking a look at other people's code, and judging the language from it. I've written PHP for about 3 years and I've never once used the @ to suppress errors.

aGHz 15y ago
The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is a notorious one, even if you personally are disciplined enough to avoid it. Not to mention that I have no idea why the original commenter picked on this. It was listed as one of the 7 or so things that can go wrong with that one single, not unusual line of code. It's not like he had a whole paragraph about why @ is bad.
- maratd 15y ago
  > The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is a notorious one Nonsense. The @ error suppression is a tool, just like any other. It should be used sparingly, but it does have its uses. I have been writing in PHP for over a decade and I have used it exactly one time. And yes, it irritates me when I see it in other's code all over the place ... which is why I refactor all external PHP code before I place it inside of mine. The amazing thing about PHP is that it has a plethora of tools available and the language doesn't force you to write code in some constrained manner according to what some snob perceives as the right way. The only right way is the way that works and works well. You don't like a feature of PHP? Don't use that feature. Simple as that.
  - aGHz 15y ago
    Ok, let me fix that: "The article tries to be a comprehensive list of problems with PHP and @ is an error suppression tool that is notorious for being misused throughout the community". > I refactor all external PHP code before I place it inside of mine > You don't like a feature of PHP? Don't use that feature. Simple as that. I don't know anything about you, but judging from that attitude you haven't worked in many teams. Of course it's not as simple as that. If I had a penny for every time I had to fix someone not checking that strpos() === FALSE, well, I could fund my own startup. You may have the luxury of refactoring all over the place, but the reality out there is that horrible code like this is left to fester until it causes real business damage.
    - maratd 15y ago

pfraze 15y ago

> This is the norm in PHP because, like the author said, it makes it incredibly easy to write bad code. I do maintenance for a lot of PHP sites at my job, and the code is staggeringly difficult to debug or modify. It's punishment for my sins. PHP was a tool for generating textual data structures (HTML) and it should've been leveraged by another tool for control flow and business logic, but it wasn't. The code I maintain is pre-frameworks; it's got no DRY, no separation of concerns, no design forethought at all. It's just HTML generation that satisfies its needs as they arise. Now PHP is a quirky, mediocre, and capable language that's still really good at generating HTML.

smsm42 15y ago

"This is the norm in PHP because, like the author said, it makes it incredibly easy to write bad code." PHP makes it extremely easy to write ANY code. But since article saying "I've noticed this piece of good code in PHP" is not going to get on HN anytime soon, you get much more attention to bad one. That's like saying Internet is the source of filth because it makes easy to post bad stuff. It makes easy to post all stuff, that's the point. "This was a great write-up for all of PHP's downfalls." These "downfalls" are known and discussed 1000 times. Really, who needs another article about "PHP sucks because I can find 3 functions with inconsistent parameters"? How exactly it is going to make anything better? What exactly does it contribute to the world?

ceol 15y ago
> PHP makes it extremely easy to write ANY code. No. PHP makes it easy to write bad code and between normal and challenging to write normal code. This is why Doctrine, the closest thing PHP developers have to SQLAlchemy, needs three ways to declare table and column metadata: a separate YAML file, a separate XML file, and in PHP comments. All three of those methods are awful, and only one allows you to keep the metadata and class in the same file. > These "downfalls" are known and discussed 1000 times. And, like a wiki, it's useful to have them all in one place.
- smsm42 15y ago
  And again you make the same mistake. You take one solution, you say it doesn't work like your favorite solution (while obviously all proper solutions should be done exactly like the one you prefer, since there's only one right way to do anything and it's, not surprisingly, exactly the way you prefer) and you make it the fault of the language used for it's implementation. How that even makes sense? I write code in a number of languages, and there's nothing "challenging" in writing proper code in PHP. The fact that your example has nothing to do with code quality or language only underlines that. > "And, like a wiki, it's useful to have them all in one place." Maybe, but that article isn't it. PHP has a wiki: http://wiki.php.net/ http://wiki.php.net/. You want to list things you want fixed in PHP and have it in one place? Ask for an account and maintain a page there. Rehashing old tired "strpos doesn't have underscore and str_rot13 has, oh noes!!! I can't use language with missing underscore!!!" is really stale by now and doesn't contribute anything new.