3 ms·

Well said. PHP gets a lot of crap thrown at it, but in the end, one of the biggest companies and second biggest website on the internet uses it as it's primary

Well said. PHP gets a lot of crap thrown at it, but in the end, one of the biggest companies and second biggest website on the internet uses it as it's primary language.. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for any of us to use.

kaiju 15y ago
The wide adoption of PHP has nothing to do with it's actual quality, though.
- ssmall 15y ago
  It helps though. High adoption, especially with bigger companies, leads to my eyes on the code which can cause a higher quality run time. It also means there are more tools, frameworks, reference books, and ultimately jobs out there for it.
  - drumdance 15y ago
    Yes. The availability of a bunch of easy-to-Google tutorials, libraries, hacks, workarounds etc should be included in the overall utility of a language.
    - prodigal_erik 15y ago
      I just followed the first half dozen search results for "php tutorial mysql". All of them resort to pasting string literals into queries, with not a prepared statement in sight. One of PHP's problems is that it quickly reached a critical mass of self-perpetuating misinformation between the ignorant and the slightly less ignorant, ensuring unforgivable security blunders for years to come. At this point I don't know how anyone could solve this, short of dramatic language changes that make those crappy old tutorials obviously unusable.
huggyface 15y ago
"If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for any of us to use." This doesn't follow at all.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I think the point he's trying to make is that you can choose PHP and you're never going to hit a wall where it can no longer be used because the project is getting too big and serious. That's a strawman argument to be sure, but I think it's reasonable to point out given the oft-repeated claimed that PHP is fine for small-scale hacking but is inadequate for "serious" software engineering.
  - Killswitch 15y ago
    Exactly... I hear so many people saying PHP is horrible for sites/apps that are big and serious, yet when I mention Facebook or Yahoo! Answers, they go quiet... What real time examples aren't good enough? Way to many people jump on the "PHP is crap" bandwagon for no reason and they all repeat the same thing over and over.
    - mattbriggs 15y ago
      Read the original post, he isn't saying that its crap with no reason, he is saying it is crap and giving a good 80 reasons that none of the alternatives have. And pointing to facebook just means it is possible to build something great with php, if you have hired the best developers in the world, and spent a ton of time writing your own toolchain. It does not mean that facebook could have done more in less time with a different platform. I have seen well written excel macros that did things I never would have thought possible, vba is still a terrible language despite that.
10098 15y ago
Facebook pretty much has to use php, they can't afford to rewrite all of this huge codebase. They have written their own compiler that translates php to c++ and then uses g++ to compile that into native code. I'm sure they had some pretty serious reasons to do that. And they probably wouldn't have to do that sort of thing if facebook wasn't written in php in the first place. Thus, the argument "hey, facebook is written in php so let's use php" is invalid, it's a typical "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.
- Killswitch 15y ago
  That's the backend. The front end stuff that average Facebook users interact with is raw PHP.
  - 10098 15y ago
    How do you know that?

kaiju 15y ago

The wide adoption of PHP has nothing to do with it's actual quality, though.

ssmall 15y ago
It helps though. High adoption, especially with bigger companies, leads to my eyes on the code which can cause a higher quality run time. It also means there are more tools, frameworks, reference books, and ultimately jobs out there for it.
- drumdance 15y ago
  Yes. The availability of a bunch of easy-to-Google tutorials, libraries, hacks, workarounds etc should be included in the overall utility of a language.
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    I just followed the first half dozen search results for "php tutorial mysql". All of them resort to pasting string literals into queries, with not a prepared statement in sight. One of PHP's problems is that it quickly reached a critical mass of self-perpetuating misinformation between the ignorant and the slightly less ignorant, ensuring unforgivable security blunders for years to come. At this point I don't know how anyone could solve this, short of dramatic language changes that make those crappy old tutorials obviously unusable.

huggyface 15y ago

"If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for any of us to use." This doesn't follow at all.

dasil003 15y ago
I think the point he's trying to make is that you can choose PHP and you're never going to hit a wall where it can no longer be used because the project is getting too big and serious. That's a strawman argument to be sure, but I think it's reasonable to point out given the oft-repeated claimed that PHP is fine for small-scale hacking but is inadequate for "serious" software engineering.
- Killswitch 15y ago
  Exactly... I hear so many people saying PHP is horrible for sites/apps that are big and serious, yet when I mention Facebook or Yahoo! Answers, they go quiet... What real time examples aren't good enough? Way to many people jump on the "PHP is crap" bandwagon for no reason and they all repeat the same thing over and over.
  - mattbriggs 15y ago
    Read the original post, he isn't saying that its crap with no reason, he is saying it is crap and giving a good 80 reasons that none of the alternatives have. And pointing to facebook just means it is possible to build something great with php, if you have hired the best developers in the world, and spent a ton of time writing your own toolchain. It does not mean that facebook could have done more in less time with a different platform. I have seen well written excel macros that did things I never would have thought possible, vba is still a terrible language despite that.

10098 15y ago

Facebook pretty much has to use php, they can't afford to rewrite all of this huge codebase. They have written their own compiler that translates php to c++ and then uses g++ to compile that into native code. I'm sure they had some pretty serious reasons to do that. And they probably wouldn't have to do that sort of thing if facebook wasn't written in php in the first place. Thus, the argument "hey, facebook is written in php so let's use php" is invalid, it's a typical "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

Killswitch 15y ago
That's the backend. The front end stuff that average Facebook users interact with is raw PHP.
- 10098 15y ago
  How do you know that?