4 ms·

PHP is like living in a big city. There are all sorts of things wrong with it, like homelessness, noise pollution, traffic, bad neighborhoods, corrupt politicia

PHP is like living in a big city. There are all sorts of things wrong with it, like homelessness, noise pollution, traffic, bad neighborhoods, corrupt politicians, perennially-under-funded public transit; the list goes on. And yet there's nowhere like it. You could move to some ideal community somewhere, and maybe you visit there now and then because it doesn't have all those other problems, but all the arts and culture, all your favorite restaurants and bars, all the meetups and hangouts and friends and co-workers make your city worth the downsides.

brendn 15y ago
I like your city analogy. I won't stoop to comparing programming languages to actual American cities, but I would counter that "PHP is like living in [a particular] big city." Here's where I disagree: it's not enough to say "hold your nose around these parts, but it's OK because those few blocks on Main St. are worth it." There will be flaws in any city, and sometimes due to mismanagement, the flaws will be neglected until blight sets in. Here's where the citizens of the city need to step up: they either flee the city and it continues to decay, or they acknowledge the flaws and address them. Don't just accept the downsides! Fix things. Make improvements. The city only thrives on the investments of its citizens.
- Kilimanjaro 15y ago
  I've always said somebody should fork php and polish it, getting rid of all the backward compatibility issues and leaving intact the ease of use and deployment. It is unbelievable to me how nobody sees the huge potential it has in books, blogs, docs, frameworks, etc. Like giving php a second chance, this time done right. Rasmus himself should give it a try as a side project with a different name. I would follow him from day one. PHP has a lot of bad parts and, like javascript, is asking for its cup of coffee. The time is ripe.
  - fs111 15y ago
    what holds you back?
    - Kilimanjaro 15y ago
      Right now I am learning about compilers because if nobody does it, I will. There are three opportunities right now in front of our eyes we are all missing: a simpler-than-node JS on the server implementation, a rectified php, and a simpler functional language for web development. Bonus point: a universal templating system, like jinja, for all programming languages. As soon as I finish the course about compilers I'll jump head first to try to solve them all.
      - Kilimanjaro 15y ago
        In the meantime, if you (or anybody) can point me to modern compiler techniques I'd appreciate it a lot. Been devouring all I can find online but nothing satisfies me.
        andrewflnr 15y ago
        What have you been reading that hasn't satisfied you? What are you looking for? The basics of parsing haven't changed much. . I'm still learning, too, so I don't know how much I can help. As I've stated elsewhere on the thread, I prefer the idea of giving another language the ease of use of PHP. It is likely to be less work, especially in the case of Lua (super easy to embed in C). And the compiler is already built for you. :)
        Kilimanjaro 15y ago
        I've been reading mostly about lexers and parsers (antlr, yacc, bison, etc) that produce C code and would like to try different approaches like SML but haven't found any literature. Read also about LLVM but C++ is not my type. Haskell and GHC are cool but again C shows its ugly head. So, I'd like to know if C is the only way or if there are new papers that I don't know of for implementing modern compilers before committing to C. I am just starting so there is a lot to read about different contexts and ideas. (PS: Java is not an option)
  - chaostheory 15y ago
    Maybe Facebook will one day as their upcoming Hiphop VM evolves. Until then, there are better options. Then again look at what happened with Perl 5 / Perl 6 transition or specifically with the one that didn't happen.
  - xyzzyz 15y ago
    Rasmus himself hates programming and he will put up with PHP in its current form as long as he gets his job done.
kingkilr 15y ago
Yeah, or I can live in some other big city that doesn't have all the shitty parts (or at least less of them). Plus it has all the good stuff. Please stop with this insane dichotomy that I have to choose between the stuff I like and living somewhere without crap. Damnit I want it all, and I'm getting it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
antihero 15y ago
Continuing your analogy, you see it as an interesting, rich big city, I see it as a shite big city, devoid of interesting culture, lots of poorly run bars and shops, everyone is miserable, it takes ages to get anywhere and it's always raining. Anyone with skill and the ability has abandoned it or is trying to. Python or Ruby however are cooler, slightly smaller cities which have a decent community feel, a good art scene, and are thankfully free of people who live in the big city but are too ignorant or lazy to venture out and get there. PHP has no fucking culture, the vast majority of 3rd party libraries and classes and snippets are garbage, the vast majority of tutorials are garbage. There are some gleaming institutions like Symfony, and some little places that are trying really hard to make it a better place, but other than that it's a wasteland. Let's not romanticise dog shit. Yes, the original guy's post was unnecessarily harsh to the development community and people who work hard to make their life in said city, but this city is a clusterfuck in comparison to pretty much anywhere else. It's one redeeming feature being that it's easy to get to and everyone's heard of it.

brendn 15y ago

I like your city analogy. I won't stoop to comparing programming languages to actual American cities, but I would counter that "PHP is like living in [a particular] big city." Here's where I disagree: it's not enough to say "hold your nose around these parts, but it's OK because those few blocks on Main St. are worth it." There will be flaws in any city, and sometimes due to mismanagement, the flaws will be neglected until blight sets in. Here's where the citizens of the city need to step up: they either flee the city and it continues to decay, or they acknowledge the flaws and address them. Don't just accept the downsides! Fix things. Make improvements. The city only thrives on the investments of its citizens.

Kilimanjaro 15y ago
I've always said somebody should fork php and polish it, getting rid of all the backward compatibility issues and leaving intact the ease of use and deployment. It is unbelievable to me how nobody sees the huge potential it has in books, blogs, docs, frameworks, etc. Like giving php a second chance, this time done right. Rasmus himself should give it a try as a side project with a different name. I would follow him from day one. PHP has a lot of bad parts and, like javascript, is asking for its cup of coffee. The time is ripe.
- fs111 15y ago
  what holds you back?
  - Kilimanjaro 15y ago
    Right now I am learning about compilers because if nobody does it, I will. There are three opportunities right now in front of our eyes we are all missing: a simpler-than-node JS on the server implementation, a rectified php, and a simpler functional language for web development. Bonus point: a universal templating system, like jinja, for all programming languages. As soon as I finish the course about compilers I'll jump head first to try to solve them all.
    - Kilimanjaro 15y ago
      In the meantime, if you (or anybody) can point me to modern compiler techniques I'd appreciate it a lot. Been devouring all I can find online but nothing satisfies me.
      - andrewflnr 15y ago
        What have you been reading that hasn't satisfied you? What are you looking for? The basics of parsing haven't changed much. . I'm still learning, too, so I don't know how much I can help. As I've stated elsewhere on the thread, I prefer the idea of giving another language the ease of use of PHP. It is likely to be less work, especially in the case of Lua (super easy to embed in C). And the compiler is already built for you. :)
        Kilimanjaro 15y ago
        I've been reading mostly about lexers and parsers (antlr, yacc, bison, etc) that produce C code and would like to try different approaches like SML but haven't found any literature. Read also about LLVM but C++ is not my type. Haskell and GHC are cool but again C shows its ugly head. So, I'd like to know if C is the only way or if there are new papers that I don't know of for implementing modern compilers before committing to C. I am just starting so there is a lot to read about different contexts and ideas. (PS: Java is not an option)
- chaostheory 15y ago
  Maybe Facebook will one day as their upcoming Hiphop VM evolves. Until then, there are better options. Then again look at what happened with Perl 5 / Perl 6 transition or specifically with the one that didn't happen.
- xyzzyz 15y ago
  Rasmus himself hates programming and he will put up with PHP in its current form as long as he gets his job done.

kingkilr 15y ago

Yeah, or I can live in some other big city that doesn't have all the shitty parts (or at least less of them). Plus it has all the good stuff. Please stop with this insane dichotomy that I have to choose between the stuff I like and living somewhere without crap. Damnit I want it all, and I'm getting it.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

antihero 15y ago

Continuing your analogy, you see it as an interesting, rich big city, I see it as a shite big city, devoid of interesting culture, lots of poorly run bars and shops, everyone is miserable, it takes ages to get anywhere and it's always raining. Anyone with skill and the ability has abandoned it or is trying to. Python or Ruby however are cooler, slightly smaller cities which have a decent community feel, a good art scene, and are thankfully free of people who live in the big city but are too ignorant or lazy to venture out and get there. PHP has no fucking culture, the vast majority of 3rd party libraries and classes and snippets are garbage, the vast majority of tutorials are garbage. There are some gleaming institutions like Symfony, and some little places that are trying really hard to make it a better place, but other than that it's a wasteland. Let's not romanticise dog shit. Yes, the original guy's post was unnecessarily harsh to the development community and people who work hard to make their life in said city, but this city is a clusterfuck in comparison to pretty much anywhere else. It's one redeeming feature being that it's easy to get to and everyone's heard of it.