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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 particu
by 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 agoI'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 agowhat holds you back?
- Kilimanjaro 15y agoRight 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 agoIn 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 agoWhat 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 agoI'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)
- andrewflnr 15y agoPersonally, I've been using Python for prototyping. It has lots of lexing libraries, and from there I just do recursive descent. I figure I'll switch to C for a "real" implementation, partly because what I'm going for in my current project is as much database as programming language. I don't think you have to use C++ to target LLVM. I think you can output LLVM IR from anything and then just call LLVM from the shell to get an executable.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- chaostheory 15y agoMaybe 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 agoRasmus himself hates programming and he will put up with PHP in its current form as long as he gets his job done.